Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Question

This "sandbox" is a place where Code Golf users can get feedback on prospective challenges they wish to post to main. This is useful because writing a clear and fully specified challenge on your first try can be difficult, and there is a much better chance of your challenge being well received if you post it in the sandbox first.

Sandbox FAQ

Posting

To post to the sandbox, scroll to the bottom of this page and click "Answer This Question". Click "OK" when it asks if you really want to add another answer.

Write your challenge just as you would when actually posting it, though you can optionally add a title at the top. You may also add some notes about specific things you would like to clarify before posting it. Other users will help you improve your challenge by rating and discussing it.

When you think your challenge is ready for the public, go ahead and post it, and replace the post here with a link to the challenge and delete the sandbox post.

Discussion

The purpose of the sandbox is to give and receive feedback on posts. If you want to, feel free to give feedback to any posts you see here. Important things to comment about can include:

• Parts of the challenge you found unclear
• Comments addressing specific points mentioned in the proposal
• Problems that could make the challenge uninteresting or unfit for the site

You don't need any qualifications to review sandbox posts. The target audience of most of these challenges is code golfers like you, so anything you find unclear will probably be unclear to others.

If you think one of your posts requires more feedback, but it's been ignored, you can ask for feedback in The Nineteenth Byte. It's not only allowed, but highly recommended! Be patient and try not to nag people though, you might have to ask multiple times.

It is recommended to leave your posts in the sandbox for at least several days, and until it receives upvotes and any feedback has been addressed.

Other

Search the sandbox / Browse your pending proposals

The sandbox works best if you sort posts by active.

To add an inline tag to a proposal, use shortcut link syntax with a prefix: [tag:king-of-the-hill]. To search for posts with a certain tag, include the name in quotes: "king-of-the-hill".

Answer 1

Golf Golf!

This is my first challenge, so please be gentle! The challenge is to write a program that will output the correct score for a layout in the card game "Golf."

The card game Golf has many variations. The house rules I use follow the standard rules for Six-Card Golf given by Pagat, with one slight difference.

Each player has a 2x3 layout of cards. By the end of each round all cards are turned face up and scored as follows:

• Each ace counts 1 point.
• Each two counts minus two points.
• Each numeral card from 3 to 10 scores face value.
• Each Jack or Queen scores 10 points.
• Each King scores zero points.
• A pair of equal cards in the same column scores zero points for the column (even if the equal cards are twos).
• Three equal cards in the same row scores zero points for the row (even if the equal cards are twos).

Input

The input can be a string or array of any kind.

Output

An integer representing the score of the Golf hand.

Examples

These use the notation A23456789TJQK.

Layout
AK3
J23

Score
7
-----------------------    
Layout
25Q
25J

Score
20
-----------------------        
Layout
T82
T8A

Score
-1
-----------------------        
Layout
QQQ
234

Score
5
-----------------------        
Layout
TJQ
QTJ

Score
60

This is code golf, so the shortest answer in bytes wins!

Answer 2

Reorder a matrix, twice

code-golf linear-algebra

You are given a square \$n \times n\$ matrix \$A\$, and a list (or vector) \$u\$ of length \$n\$ containing the numbers \$1\$ through \$n\$ (or \$0\$ through \$n-1\$). Your task is to reorder the columns and rows of the matrix \$A\$ according to the order specified in \$u\$.

That is, you will construct a matrix \$B\$ where the \$(i,j)\$-th element is the \$(u(i),u(j))\$-th element of \$A\$. You should also output the inverse of this action; that is, the (i,j)-th element of \$A\$ will end up at position \$(u(i),u(j))\$ in a new matrix \$C\$.

For example, given $$A = \begin{bmatrix} 11 &12& 13 \\ 21& 22& 23 \\ 31& 32& 33 \end{bmatrix},\quad u=\begin{bmatrix}3 & 1 & 2\end{bmatrix}$$

the output should be $$B = \begin{bmatrix}33 & 31 & 32 \\ 13 & 11 & 12 \\ 23 & 21 & 22 \end{bmatrix},\quad C= \begin{bmatrix}22 & 23 & 21 \\32 & 33 & 31 \\ 12 & 13 & 11 \end{bmatrix}$$

You may take input and output through any of the default I/O methods. You do not have to specify which matrix is \$B\$ or \$C\$, as long as you output both. You may assume \$A\$ only contains positive integers. You must support matrices up to at least size \$64 \times 64\$.

Example

===== Input =====
A =
 35     1     6    26    19    24
  3    32     7    21    23    25
 31     9     2    22    27    20
  8    28    33    17    10    15
 30     5    34    12    14    16
  4    36    29    13    18    11
u=
  3 5 6 1 4 2

==== Output =====
B = 
  2    27    20    31    22     9
 34    14    16    30    12     5
 29    18    11     4    13    36
  6    19    24    35    26     1
 33    10    15     8    17    28
  7    23    25     3    21    32
C = 
 17    15     8    10    28    33
 13    11     4    18    36    29
 26    24    35    19     1     6
 12    16    30    14     5    34
 21    25     3    23    32     7
 22    20    31    27     9     2

Answer 3

No, you don't need deep learning: AlphaGo edition

To counter the industry fad of tackling the most trivial problems with deep learning, I propose that a proof of concept be created to demonstrate that simple database queries are in fact often sufficient. To wit, I propose to demonstrate that a database query can in fact be used to do what AlphaGo does and even do it better.

The proof of concept will consist of two parts:

• A Script to create a script to create a (...) query that, given the state of a game of Go, will retrieve a move that will result in eventual victory.
• A Script to create a script to create a (...) script to initialize the database.

This is a code-golf challenge so the least total bytes wins. Some rules for the challenge:

1. You may use whatever database lets you golf best
2. There is no limit for how many recursions of running the script generated by the script are required
   1. This includes directly submitting the query and (if the universe's hard drive capacity somehow permits) the init data
3. The final init script may also be an executable-ish that connects to the database backend to populate it
4. You may either pass the game state as an argument to the query or store the state in the database (storing the state in the DB doesn't count toward your score)
5. Handicap games don't need to be accounted for.

The rules of Go are, paraphrased:

• The game is played by placing black and white stones on a 19x19 grid
• The aim of the game is to score points by surrounding open space with your stones (The edges of the board count as surrounding)
• Black plays first
• A stone is part of a group if it is orthogonally connected to a member of the group
• The empty spaces orthogonally adjacent to a group are called liberties
• A group without liberties is considered captured and is removed from the board and added to the capturing player's score
• A group that can not escape capture is considered dead, and remains on the board but will count as captured for scoring purposes
• Suiciding your own group by filling its last liberty is not allowed
• Ko rule: If a single stone is captured so that capturing the capturing stone will return the board to the immediately previous state, such second capture is illegal on the turn after the first capture.
• The game ends when both players pass, indicating that they can't improve their score by playing another stone.

kolmogorov-complexity

Answer 4

Where am I?

Given an input folder structure (i.e. a tree data structure with named nodes), and a pointer to a directory (a specific node) within that tree structure, the program should output the full path to the directory the pointer is pointing at (in linux format, so /var/log for example), without ever inspecting the name of the current node or its ancestors; only its descendants.

The rules of the challenge are the equivalent of:

"you can cd and ls but not pwd" if this was being run on a live linux files system

but I feel I should expand on that a bit regarding how it works for a tree:

• The method starts with the pointer, and it can ls to see what is contained within this directory (i.e. view the immediate child nodes in the tree structure, but not its own name)
• the method can also cd dirname into any directory (i.e. move the pointer to any immediate child in the tree from the current node), and cd .. to go to a previous directory (i.e. move the pointer to the immediate previous child in the tree)
  • cd .. leaves you in the same directory (node), if there is no parent
  • cd invalidDirNameleaves you in the same directory (node), if there is no immediate child with that name
• Any directory can contain any number of other directories, or none.
• You are forbidden to do the equivalent of cd /

Inputs

A tree-structure representing a file system and a pointer to a node in that tree

Assumptions 1. There are no duplicate folder names in the same parent folder (so ls can't return folder, folder; for example) - but there may be other folders with the same name elsewhere in the tree structure; in which case it doesn't matter which your program outputs (as it has no way of knowing which is correct) 2. ...Therefore, it may not be possible to determine which folder you started in - in which case a best-guess is fine (see examples 3, 4) 3. Symlinks and cyclical trees are not a part of this challenge - it will always be a simple parent-child tree structure - so you are always guaranteed to find the root by doing cd .. enough times.

Output

The path that the pointer was pointing at, as a string or char array (or equivalent for your language).

Scoring

code-golf scoring is used, so shortest bytes wins.

Example 1

input map: /var/ftp/in, /var/ftp/out/child, /var/etc/test/child/etc, /var/etc/test/c2/etc2, /var/etc/test/c3

input pointer points at: c2

sample working:

1. ls -> "etc2"
2. cd .., ls -> "child","c2", "c3" - three options, need to find which is correct
3. cd child, ls -> "etc2" - this doesn't match 1, so go back
4. cd .., cd c2, ls -> "etc2" - this is correct, so I know my path ends with "/c2"
5. cd .., cd .., ls -> "test" - only one folder, so I know my path ends with "/test/c2"
6. cd .., ls -> "ftp", "etc" - two options, need to find which is correct
7. cd ftp, ls -> "in", "out" - incorrect, so go back
8. cd .. -> there was only two options, so "etc" must be correct. my path ends with "/etc/test/c2"
9. cd .., ls -> "var" - only one folder, so path ends with "/var/etc/test/c2"
10. cd .., ls -> "var" - same option, so assume we're at root.
11. Output "/var/etc/test/c2"

Example 2

input map: /app/data/dir/in

input pointer points at: /app/data

Output: "/app/data"

Example 3

input map: /var, /app, /test

input pointer points at: /app

Output: "/var", "/app" or "/test" are all valid outputs.

Note that there is no way for the program to differentiate between the three folders; and so any of the three are a valid answer for the purposes of this application.

Example 4

input map: /var/etc/test, /app/etc/two

input pointer points at: /app/etc

Output: "/app/etc"

Questions

1. Does the spec make sense?

Answer 5

Title: The Liquorice All-sort

I have just invented a new sorting algorithm, which I would like you to implement in the smallest number of bytes... The Liquorice All-sort

Given that the individual sweets are (or were) named: chips, rocks, Buttons[sic], nuggets, plugs, twists, spogs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquorice_allsorts), we can say that:

A bag (multiset) of Liquorice allsorts is comprised of 0..n of each item chip, rock, Button, nugget, plug, twist, spog, plus a bonus of 1..2 Bertie.

Given an input of an arbitrary array characters (A-z, 0-9, space), and a bag of Liquorice allsorts, sort as follows:

For each input character, from last to first:
    Is the bag empty?
           Yes: Exit the sort
    Else, Is the input equal to a letter (case-sensitive) that is contained in the name of one or more of the sweets in the bag?
       Yes: The number of items it matches is the number of positions it moves up the list (can't move past the top of the list).
            Take a bite out of each of the used sweets, by removing the letter we used. 
            Have we used all the letters in any item?
               Yes: Remove that item from the bag
    Else: move to the bottom of the list.

Inputs

two inputs - the numbers to sort, and the list of sweet names. Both are guaranteed to be non-empty bags (sets that can contain duplicates; or an equivalent in your language), and the bags of sweets contains a minimum of one Bertie.

Outputs

The sorted numbers

Examples

1. {Bertie},{B} -> {B}
2. {Bertie},{X,B} -> {B,X}
3. {chip, rock, Button, nugget, plug, twist, spog, Bertie}, {A,B,C,k,e,r,w} -> {B,C,k,e,r,w,A} -> {B,C,k,e,r,w,A} -> {B,k,e,r,w,A,C} -> {k,B,e,r,w,A,C} -> {e,k,B,r,w,A,C} -> {e,r,k,B,w,A,C} -> {e,r,k,w,B,A,C}
4. {Bertie, rock}, {r,o,c,k,r,o,c,e} -> {r,o,c,k,r,o,c,e} -> {o,r,c,k,r,o,c,e} -> {o,c,r,k,r,o,c,e} -> {o,c,k,r,r,o,c,e} -> (remove rock from the bag) -> {o,c,k,r,o,c,e,r} -> {o,c,k,r,c,e,r,o} -> {o,c,k,r,e,r,o,c} -> {o,c,k,e,r,r,o,c}

Sandbox Questions

I really like the idea of doing something with this (I like the wordplay of bag, etc.); but I don't know if the algorithm is just too arbitrary. Any thoughts or alternatives would be appreciated!

Answer 6

Title - Fix the note

Given a musical note letter (A to G), followed by any number of accidentals (either 0..n # or 0..n b, not a combination of both); output a representation of the same note with the least possible number of accidentals.

A # means "shift the note one semitone up", and a b means "shift the note one semitone down".

All valid output notes are as follows (in order, then loops):

A A#/Bb B C C#/Db D D#/Eb E F F#/Gb G G#/Ab

So a sharp would move to the right along that list (and loop); and a flat would move you to the left.

Examples

• A -> A
• B# -> C
• Fb -> E
• A##### -> D
• Dbbb -> B
• Gbbbbbbbbbbbb -> G
• Bb -> Bb
• F# -> F#
• E## -> F#
• E# -> F

You can assume that the length of the input won't overflow your language.

Where the input has sharps, the output can also only contain 0..1 sharps; and vice-versa for flats.

This is code-golf, so shortest bytes wins. Standard rules apply

Answer 7

Title: Score my Tarok hand

Inspired by this challenge

In Slovenia (and elsewhere in central Europe), the card game Tarok is very popular. See here for a complete list of rules, but essentially it is a trick taking game, played in teams that change per round.

This challenge is a code-golf challenge, concerning the scoring of a hand, at the end of a round.

In a normal round, the game is played in partnerships. Any one player could decide the "contract" for the round, and that player (plus anyone on their team) either wins or loses the round, giving them a positive or negative score. They are known as the "Declaring team". The "Opposing team" cannot score in that round.

The input for this challenge will therefore be the Declaring team's cards, plus the contract type they bid for.

The cards

In a game of Tarok, there are 54 cards; as follows (shown as highest to lowest in each suit - names in brackets after a card are local names given to certain cards):

• Spades, Clubs: King, Queen, Knight, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7
• Diamonds, Hearts: King, Queen, Knight, Jack 1, 2, 3, 4
• Taroks: Joker (škis), XXI (mond), XX, XIX, ... III, II, I (pagat)

The point value of the cards are as follows:

• kings, škis, XXI and I - 5 points each
• queens - 4 points each
• knights - 3 points each
• jacks - 2 points each
• all other cards - 1 points each

Scoring a hand

This is what I believe makes this challenge interesting.

• For each set of three cards in your hand, add up their values and subtract 2.
• If you end up with one or two cards left over after making the sets of three, add up their values and subtract 1.
  • So, a pair or a set of three one-point cards are both worth 1 point; but a single one-point card is worth nothing.

The total value of the pack comes to 70 card points.

In most contracts (see below), the declarer's side wins if at the end of the play they have at least 36 of the available 70 points; otherwise they lose. Because of this, the members of each team pool their cards for scoring; and so if you know the score of one team, you can calculate the score of the other.

Once the hand value has been calculated, the difference from 35 is taken (i.e. handValue - 35), and this difference is rounded to the nearest 5 points.

Contracts and Bonuses

Once the hand score is known for the declaring team, the final score is calculated based on the "contract" that was chosen at the start of the round (where "difference" is the rounded hand difference from 35, calculated above. Note this may be negative, if the opposing team got more points):

Contract Name          | Scoring (+ if contract won, - if lost)
------------------------------------------------
Three                  | difference +/- 10
Two                    | difference +/- 20
One                    | difference +/- 30
Solo Three             | difference +/- 40
Solo Two               | difference +/- 50
Solo One               | difference +/- 60
Beggar*                | 70 (fixed)
Solo without           | 80 (fixed)
Open Beggar*           | 90 (fixed)
Colour Valat Without** | 125 (fixed), no bonuses
Valat Without**        | 500 (fixed), no bonuses

With the exception of those marked, all contracts are "won" if the difference is 36 or higher; otherwise it was "lost".

* - to win the points, you must win no tricks (and therefore no cards)

** - to win the points, you must win ALL the tricks (and therefore all the cards). In this case, no other scoring bonuses are applied.

Bonus points are awarded to the declaring team, or subtracted from the declaring team if the opposing team complete the criteria. Bonuses are only awarded on contracts where the difference is taken into account. (i.e. from "Three" to "Solo One" only, in the above table)

Bonus Criteria                                | Bonus Points
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Take škis, XXI and I ("the Trule") in tricks  | 10
Take all 4 kings in tricks                    | 10
Take all the tricks ("Valat")                 | 500, no other scoring is applied

(note that in Tarok, there are some actions that take place during play which give additional bonuses, such as announcing at the start of the game your intention to get a certain bonus; but as those would require more inputs to calculate, I will leave these out of this challenge.)

Some Examples

All 54 cards, any contract -> +500 points

No Cards, called Beggar -> + 70 points

king, king, king, king, škis, XXI, I, queen, queen, queen, queen, knight, knight, knight, knight, jack, jack, 1H, 2H; called "One" -> 30 points for contract + 20 points difference (hand score is 56 which is 21 different from 35, so round to 20) + 10 points kings bonus + 10 points Trule Bonus = 70 points

No cards, called "Solo One" -> -500 (opposing team got Valat bonus)

KS,8S,7S, called "Two" ->failed contract, so -30 (difference), -20 (contract), -10 (opponents got Trule bonus) = -60 points

KH, KD, škis, I, queen, queen, queen, queen, knight, knight, knight, knight, jack, jack, 1H, 2H, 7C,1D,2D,4D; called "Solo Without" = +80 points

KH, KD, škis, I, queen, queen, queen, queen, knight, knight, knight, knight, jack, jack, 1H, X, III,II,2D,KS; called "Three" = +15 difference (49-35, rounded) + 10 contract = +25

Answer 8

Spreadsheet Columns

code-golfsequencealphabetarithmetic

In most spreadsheet programs, columns go A, B, C, ... X, Y, Z. After this comes AA, AB, AC ... AX, AY, AZ, BA and so on.

Your task is to convert one of these strings in to a column number. You must support inputs up to the maximum length of your language, to a minimum of 3.

Test Cases:

A   => 1
B   => 2
Z   => 26
AA  => 27
AC  => 29
AZ  => 52
BA  => 53
FC  => 159
ID  => 238
AAA => 703

Standard loopholes are forbidden.

Sandbox:

1. Are my test cases correct? They were done of the top of my head, so they may not be accurate.
2. Is this a duplicate? My searching suggests otherwise, but it may not be comprehensive.
3. Are there any other tags I could add?

Answer 9

DayByte Savings

Input: Any positive integer 1..n; or a year in the future (e.g. 2025)

Output: The date-times (UTC) that Britain will change to/from daylight savings times (i.e. 1am on the last Sunday in March and 2am on the last Sunday in October) between now (according to the machine running the code) and the current date in the year specified in the input. We can assume this rule won't change in the future.

Any valid list of date-time formats is fine for the output (e.g. "28th October 2018 2am" or "28-OCT-18T02:00:00" or "1540692000" [epoch time])

inspired by https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50839863/future-list-of-daylight-savings-changeover-date-times-uk

You could store all the data in your program (it counts towards your byte count), or just call a builtin that calculates it - your choice.

You can assume that 2099 (however far ahead that is) is the largest input.

code-golf, usual rules and exclusions apply. You won't have to deal with invalid inputs.

Example (assuming today is 23rd September 2019):

2020 or 1 -> 27th Oct 2019 2am; 29th Mar 2020 1am

2099 or 80 -> 27 October 2019 02:00:00
      29 March 2020 01:00:00
      25 October 2020 02:00:00
      28 March 2021 01:00:00
      31 October 2021 02:00:00
      27 March 2022 01:00:00
      30 October 2022 02:00:00
      26 March 2023 01:00:00
      29 October 2023 02:00:00
      31 March 2024 01:00:00
      27 October 2024 02:00:00
      30 March 2025 01:00:00
      26 October 2025 02:00:00
      29 March 2026 01:00:00
      25 October 2026 02:00:00
      28 March 2027 01:00:00
      31 October 2027 02:00:00
      26 March 2028 01:00:00
      29 October 2028 02:00:00
      25 March 2029 01:00:00
      28 October 2029 02:00:00
      31 March 2030 01:00:00
      27 October 2030 02:00:00
      30 March 2031 01:00:00
      26 October 2031 02:00:00
      28 March 2032 01:00:00
      31 October 2032 02:00:00
      27 March 2033 01:00:00
      30 October 2033 02:00:00
      26 March 2034 01:00:00
      29 October 2034 02:00:00
      25 March 2035 01:00:00
      28 October 2035 02:00:00
      30 March 2036 01:00:00
      26 October 2036 02:00:00
      29 March 2037 01:00:00
      25 October 2037 02:00:00
      28 March 2038 01:00:00
      31 October 2038 02:00:00
      27 March 2039 01:00:00
      30 October 2039 02:00:00
      25 March 2040 01:00:00
      28 October 2040 02:00:00
      31 March 2041 01:00:00
      27 October 2041 02:00:00
      30 March 2042 01:00:00
      26 October 2042 02:00:00
      29 March 2043 01:00:00
      25 October 2043 02:00:00
      27 March 2044 01:00:00
      30 October 2044 02:00:00
      26 March 2045 01:00:00
      29 October 2045 02:00:00
      25 March 2046 01:00:00
      28 October 2046 02:00:00
      31 March 2047 01:00:00
      27 October 2047 02:00:00
      29 March 2048 01:00:00
      25 October 2048 02:00:00
      28 March 2049 01:00:00
      31 October 2049 02:00:00
      27 March 2050 01:00:00
      30 October 2050 02:00:00
      26 March 2051 01:00:00
      29 October 2051 02:00:00
      31 March 2052 01:00:00
      27 October 2052 02:00:00
      30 March 2053 01:00:00
      26 October 2053 02:00:00
      29 March 2054 01:00:00
      25 October 2054 02:00:00
      28 March 2055 01:00:00
      31 October 2055 02:00:00
      26 March 2056 01:00:00
      29 October 2056 02:00:00
      25 March 2057 01:00:00
      28 October 2057 02:00:00
      31 March 2058 01:00:00
      27 October 2058 02:00:00
      30 March 2059 01:00:00
      26 October 2059 02:00:00
      28 March 2060 01:00:00
      31 October 2060 02:00:00
      27 March 2061 01:00:00
      30 October 2061 02:00:00
      26 March 2062 01:00:00
      29 October 2062 02:00:00
      25 March 2063 01:00:00
      28 October 2063 02:00:00
      30 March 2064 01:00:00
      26 October 2064 02:00:00
      29 March 2065 01:00:00
      25 October 2065 02:00:00
      28 March 2066 01:00:00
      31 October 2066 02:00:00
      27 March 2067 01:00:00
      30 October 2067 02:00:00
      25 March 2068 01:00:00
      28 October 2068 02:00:00
      31 March 2069 01:00:00
      27 October 2069 02:00:00
      30 March 2070 01:00:00
      26 October 2070 02:00:00
      29 March 2071 01:00:00
      25 October 2071 02:00:00
      27 March 2072 01:00:00
      30 October 2072 02:00:00
      26 March 2073 01:00:00
      29 October 2073 02:00:00
      25 March 2074 01:00:00
      28 October 2074 02:00:00
      31 March 2075 01:00:00
      27 October 2075 02:00:00
      29 March 2076 01:00:00
      25 October 2076 02:00:00
      28 March 2077 01:00:00
      31 October 2077 02:00:00
      27 March 2078 01:00:00
      30 October 2078 02:00:00
      26 March 2079 01:00:00
      29 October 2079 02:00:00
      31 March 2080 01:00:00
      27 October 2080 02:00:00
      30 March 2081 01:00:00
      26 October 2081 02:00:00
      29 March 2082 01:00:00
      25 October 2082 02:00:00
      28 March 2083 01:00:00
      31 October 2083 02:00:00
      26 March 2084 01:00:00
      29 October 2084 02:00:00
      25 March 2085 01:00:00
      28 October 2085 02:00:00
      31 March 2086 01:00:00
      27 October 2086 02:00:00
      30 March 2087 01:00:00
      26 October 2087 02:00:00
      28 March 2088 01:00:00
      31 October 2088 02:00:00
      27 March 2089 01:00:00
      30 October 2089 02:00:00
      26 March 2090 01:00:00
      29 October 2090 02:00:00
      25 March 2091 01:00:00
      28 October 2091 02:00:00
      30 March 2092 01:00:00
      26 October 2092 02:00:00
      29 March 2093 01:00:00
      25 October 2093 02:00:00
      28 March 2094 01:00:00
      31 October 2094 02:00:00
      27 March 2095 01:00:00
      30 October 2095 02:00:00
      25 March 2096 01:00:00
      28 October 2096 02:00:00
      31 March 2097 01:00:00
      27 October 2097 02:00:00
      30 March 2098 01:00:00
      26 October 2098 02:00:00
      29 March 2099 01:00:00

Answer 10

Golf a new OEIS sequence.

This is a code-golf challenge. The goal of this challenge is to create an integer sequence that is not in the OEIS using the fewest possible number of bytes.

Your program can either output an infinite list, or it can be a function from the natural numbers to the integers, which when evaluated on 1, 2, 3, 4,... gives a sequence that is not in the OEIS.

Restrictions

Without any restrictions, this is a very easy challenge, we can simply write a program that prints out the constant sequence consisting of 33, for example.

In order to avoid accepting "easy" sequences like this, your proposed sequence cannot be a finite linear combination or entrywise product of existing sequences or any rows or columns of existing tables in the OEIS.¹

Also, I want to avoid submissions that take an otherwise disallowed sequence and prepend some list (e.g. 3,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1). Thus the above rule must stand even after ignoring the first N terms of the sequence.²

Challenge

Post your source code, the first few terms of the sequence, and an explanation of what your source code is doing.

It's okay if your submission is not very mathematically interesting, but I'm hoping that one or two will be.

(Lastly, if your sequence is disqualified by someone writing is as linear combinations of existing sequences, feel free to modify/fix it, but please don't delete it.)

---

¹ This rule disallows all polynomials in n, for example, since these can be written as finite linear combinations of columns in A009999 read as a square array.

² This rule also disallows all finite-length sequences.

Meta

Note: I don't know if this challenge is totally silly, or if it has obvious loopholes, or if closing loopholes results in a challenge that is too difficult or arbitrary.

• Tags: code-golf, sequence
• Is this a duplicate?
• Any other restrictions? Any loosening of current restrictions?

Answer 11

Draw a CE mark graphical-output

Your input is the scaling factor n. You must output an image of width 82n and height 48n (if you are generating a vector image, it should have that as its default size). The image will be either transparent or white, with the following regions in black:

• The segment of a ring centred at 24n,24n of outer radius 20n and inner radius 14n that is left of the vertical line at 26n.
• A copy of that segment displaced 34n to the right. The original rings would therefore exactly overlap if they were not segments.
• A rectangle with upper left corner at 44n,21n and lower right corner at 56n,27n.

This is code-golf, so the shortest program or function that breaks no standard loopholes wins!

Answer 12

moved

Answer 13

Typhoon: Where am I from? code-golfstringclassification

Introduction

A typhoon is basically a hurricane in the northwestern Pacific region. Unlike hurricanes, typhoons are named by 14 regions, each providing 10 names, adding up to 140 names. The 140 names are used in a cyclic pattern; after the last name is used, the first one will be used again. The names may sometimes be retired, mainly because of the devastation the typhoon with those names have made.

Here are the 140 names.

[Text-only]

Region             Column 1   Column 2   Column 3   Column 4   Column 5   Column 6   Column 7   Column 8   Column 9   Column 10
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cambodia           Damrey     Ampil      Kong-rey   Krosa      Nakri      Maysak     Krovanh    Chanthu    Trases     Nesat
China              Haikui     Wukong     Yutu       Bailu      Fengshen   Haishen    Dujuan     Dianmu     Mulan      Haitang
DPR Korea          Kirogi     Jongdari   Toraji     Podul      Kalmaegi   Noul       Surigae    Mindulle   Meari      Nalgae
Hong Kong, China   Yun-yeung  Shanshan   Man-yi     Lingling   Fung-wong  Dolphin    Choi-wan   Lionrock   Ma-on      Banyan
Japan              Koinu      Yagi       Usagi      Kajiki     Kammuri    Kujira     Koguma     Kompasu    Tokage     Yamaneko
Lao PDR            Bolaven    Leepi      Pabuk      Faxai      Phanfone   Chan-hom   Champi     Namtheun   Hinnamnor  Pakhar
Macao, China       Sanba      Bebinca    Wutip      Peipah     Vongfong   Linfa      In-fa      Malou      Muifa      Sanvu
Malaysia           Jelawat    Rumbia     Sepat      Tapah      Nuri       Nangka     Cempaka    Nyatoh     Merbok     Mawar
Micronesia         Ewiniar    Soulik     Mun        Mitag      Sinlaku    Saudel     Nepartak   Rai        Nanmadol   Guchol
Philippines        Maliksi    Cimaron    Danas      Hagibis    Hagupit    Molave     Lupit      Malakas    Talas      Talim
RO Korea           Gaemi      Jebi       Nari       Neoguri    Jangmi     Goni       Mirinae    Megi       Noru       Doksuri
Thailand           Prapiroon  Mangkhut   Wipha      Bualoi     Mekkhala   Atsani     Nida       Chaba      Kulap      Khanun
U.S.A.             Maria      Barijat    Francisco  Matmo      Higos      Etau       Omais      Aere       Roke       Lan
Viet Nam           Son-Tinh   Trami      Lekima     Halong     Bavi       Vamco      Conson     Songda     Sonca      Saola

[JSON]

{"Cambodia":["Damrey","Ampil","Kong-rey","Krosa","Nakri","Maysak","Krovanh","Chanthu","Trases","Nesat"],"China":["Haikui","Wukong","Yutu","Bailu","Fengshen","Haishen","Dujuan","Dianmu","Mulan","Haitang"],"DPR Korea":["Kirogi","Jongdari","Toraji","Podul","Kalmaegi","Noul","Surigae","Mindulle","Meari","Nalgae"],"Hong Kong, China":["Yun-yeung","Shanshan","Man-yi","Lingling","Fung-wong","Dolphin","Choi-wan","Lionrock","Ma-on","Banyan"],"Japan":["Koinu","Yagi","Usagi","Kajiki","Kammuri","Kujira","Koguma","Kompasu","Tokage","Yamaneko"],"Lao PDR":["Bolaven","Leepi","Pabuk","Faxai","Phanfone","Chan-hom","Champi","Namtheun","Hinnamnor","Pakhar"],"Macao, China":["Sanba","Bebinca","Wutip","Peipah","Vongfong","Linfa","In-fa","Malou","Muifa","Sanvu"],"Malaysia":["Jelawat","Rumbia","Sepat","Tapah","Nuri","Nangka","Cempaka","Nyatoh","Merbok","Mawar"],"Micronesia":["Ewiniar","Soulik","Mun","Mitag","Sinlaku","Saudel","Nepartak","Rai","Nanmadol","Guchol"],"Philippines":["Maliksi","Cimaron","Danas","Hagibis","Hagupit","Molave","Lupit","Malakas","Talas","Talim"],"RO Korea":["Gaemi","Jebi","Nari","Neoguri","Jangmi","Goni","Mirinae","Megi","Noru","Doksuri"],"Thailand":["Prapiroon","Mangkhut","Wipha","Bualoi","Mekkhala","Atsani","Nida","Chaba","Kulap","Khanun"],"U.S.A.":["Maria","Barijat","Francisco","Matmo","Higos","Etau","Omais","Aere","Roke","Lan"],"Viet Nam":["Son-Tinh","Trami","Lekima","Halong","Bavi","Vamco","Conson","Songda","Sonca","Saola"]}

This chart is based from that on the Japan Meteorological Agency website, retrieved on 10 October 2019. Conventionally the list is divided into 5 columns, but in order to list all the names by region, I have organized them into 10 columns, so that each row fits all names from the same region. Moreover, two of the names, Mangkhut and Rumbia are retired and are still pending for replacement. Here I will keep these 2 names for integrity.

Challenge

Write a program or function, that receives a name in the list above as input, and returns or outputs which region it is named after.

The input and output formats are flexible. For input, you may omit the hyphens and/or receive all uppercase or lowercase input. For output, you may also instead return an element from a set of 14 distinct values of your choice, each representing a region.

Your program does not need to deal with invalid inputs.

Sample I/O

Input: Chan-hom (exact wording)
Output: Lao PDR (exact wording)

Input: Kongrey (Kon-grey; without hyphen)
Output: KH (Cambodia; ISO 3166 code, uppercase)

Input: atsani (Atsani; all lowercase)
Output: th (Thailand; ISO 3166 code, lowercase)

Input: LAN (Lan; all uppercase)
Output: 12 (U.S.A; 0-indexed)

Input: choiwan (Choi-wan; without hyphen & all lowercase)
Output: 4 (Hong Kong, China; 1-indexed)

Input: INFA (In-fa; without hyphen & all uppercase)
Output: Macau (Macao, China; common name) 

Again, you may have different output formats, but the input and output formats you use must be stated.

Winning Criteria

The shortest submission in each language wins. No loophole is allowed.

Answer 14

How often does the word sixty-eight (68) appear in numbers from 1 to N. The upper limit for N to which the program needs to be able to perform is 100 000 000.

The program will take N as input and return every number in which the word sixty-eight appears from 1 to N, and a sum of all appearances of sixty-eight at the end.

I'm looking for the spoken form, so the word sixty-eight appears in

68 000 000 - sixty-eight million - once

68 680 000 - sixty-eight million six-hundred thousand - once

68 068 068 - sixty-eight million sixty-eight thousand and sixty-eight - three times

and so on. The shortest implementation that gives a correct result wins.

Answer 15

Golf you a co-quine for greater good!

Build a program that halts if and only if the input matches the source code.

Answer 16

Doing something with Haifu

Haifu is an esoteric programming language by David Morgan-Mar, which, in addition to having a very weird control scheme also has the requirement that each program should be in the form of Haiku.

Maybe it would be possible to do a cops-and-robbers-like challenge with it. The robber's task is to write a Haifu program doing something non-trivial, using a shorthand code, where each command/variable is replaced by a unique single- or two-character identifier, and ignoring the haiku structure demand (The language is weird enough that even "Hello World" isn't a trivial task). The cop's task is to take a robber's code and turn it into a valid Haiku. However, this would either be a popularity-contest, or maybe even outsourced to a different SE site.

Meta questions:

Is this a feasible concept and does it fit into the spirit of CodeGolf.SE?

The Haifu specification is not quite complete. If I'd be doing this, I'd need first some sharp eyes to help me spot all the holes and fill them. Then, the shortened syntax for the coding part would need to be designed. If enough people say it might be feasible, I'll probably open a chat room to discuss this.

Lastly, of course, what to do with the turning code into Haiku part of the challenge?

Answer 17

Intersect the integer ranges

Integer ranges take one of four forms:

1. A start, a step and an end. Both ends are included in the range. The difference between the end and start is guaranteed to be a multiple of the step. The step is guaranteed to be positive, even if the start is equal to the end (it may not be greater).
2. A start and a step. This is a half-infinite range.
3. A step and an end. This is also a half-infinite range.
4. An empty range. You can decide how you want to represent this, but you must accept as input any empty range you can output.

Given two integer ranges, please output their intersection.

1. If the two ranges are disjoint, return an empty range.
2. If the two ranges are identical, simply output one of them.
3. If one range completely subsumes the other, output the latter.
4. Determine the values common to both ranges, and output a range that represents these values.

Examples:

[1, 1, 6] ∩ [3, 1, 9] = [3, 1, 6]
[1, 2, 9] ∩ [2, 1, 8] = [2, 2, 8]
[1, 2, ~] ∩ [2, 3, ~] = [5, 6, ~]
[~, 2, 9] ∩ [1, 3, ~] = [1, 6, 7]
[1, 2, 3] ∩ [2, 2, 2] = []

If would be nice if you could indicate any preconditions that your answer doesn't require (e.g. if it works for a step of zero when the start and end are the same).

This is code-golf, so the shortest program or function that breaks no standard loopholes wins!

Answer 18

Can I run this?

I'm a big fan of file-system code-golf challenges, and an idea recently struck me. Suppose you're on a *nix system and you want to know how many executable programs you have installed that you can run. Given a file with mode mode, you can run it if it is a normal file (mode & S_IFMT == S_IFREG) and any of the following are true:

• Its owner is equal to your effective user id and 0100 & p != 0 (user executable bit is set)
• Its group is a group you are a member of and 0010 & p != 0 (group executable bit is set)
• 0001 & p != 0 (world executable bit is set)

Rules:

TODO: See below.

---

For Sandbox

Writing a good file-system challenge is hard. I have some ideas, but I've brainstormed some easy solutions and I want to know which challenge and restrictions would be most well-received.

There are three possible challenges I am considering:

• single file: Given a path as input, output truthy/falsy whether the path is a path to a file the user can run.

• count in directory: output the number of files the user can run at any depth underneath the current working directory (or a provided directory, should you prefer that)

• count in PATH: output the number of files the user can run immediately under any directory in the environment variable PATH. The value of PATH may also be given as input to the program/function.

Potential restrictions (I marked as spoilers since these can provide solutions if I don't ban them):

• Banning the use of access()/os.access()/etc.

• Banning the use of the which executable typically found on *nix machines (which is exactly the solution to the first challenge)

• Banning the use of any external executables

I am currently inclined to choose the second challenge, allow all solutions, but award a bounty to the shortest program which follows the above restrictions.

Answer 19

Universal duct tape programming code-challenge duct-tape-coding polyglot

The task is to write a program that [TODO: insert simpleish task here] that works in as many languages as possible, while only using code that was already written before by someone else at http://stackoverflow.com. To minimize time, you are trying to use as few snippets as possible. Therefore, they must be as long as possible.

Code from http://stackoverflow.com is defined as substrings of code blocks in questions, answers and comments created before this challenge [TODO: or perhaps this sandbox post?]. You must link to the source of the code in your answer. You can concatenate multiple snippets, optionally inserting newlines.

Your code must work in at least two different languages.

Your score is equal to the minimum of the number of languages your code works in and the length of the shortest snippet you use. Highest score wins.

Sandbox stuff

• Is this a good idea?
• How simple should the simpleish task be?
• Can the scoring system be abused?
• Does the "multiple languages" part need clarification?
• Does the "stackoverflow snippets" part need clarification?

Answer 20

Title: Station Codes

Background

In the UK, railway stations are assigned three-letter "CRS" codes (e.g. "Chester" = CTR, "Caterham" = CAT). Something similar is also used for airports worldwide (IATA codes).

Challenge

The challenge is to take in the three letter code as the input, and present the name of the station as the output.

The codes are always in upper-case; the outputs are as shown in the link above.

Usual IO rules, exclusions; code-golf rules apply.

Examples

• CAT -> Caterham
• CCH -> Chichester
• HHY -> Highbury & Islington
• HOP -> Hope (Derbyshire)
• AUW -> Ascott-under-Wychwood
• CSD -> Cobham & Stoke d'Abernon
• HID -> Hall-i'-th'-Wood
• HXX -> Heathrow Airport Terminals 1, 2 and 3
• ELY -> Ely
• anything else listed in the link above - the correct station name
• anything not listed in the link above -> no preference

code-golf

Sandbox Query

Is this boring? - does it add anything to the existing gamut of "compress a load of data and index it" -type questions?

Answer 21

Implement Or code-golf string interpreter

or is a dubious esoteric programming language. The author is unknown but it is known that fungot (a chatbot) is currently learning or but it remains unknown how it does it and where it receives the required material to learn or. Check out this IRC log to see fungot revealing part of the language.

Instruction reference

It is only known that a space followed by an f pushes false to the stack. The false value may by any falsy value of your choosing. Since this language does not support output, in order to make verifying answers possible, you should output the resulting stack in the end of the program.

Test cases

Expects one false to the stack

 f

Expects 2 falses on the stack

m f ma f

Expects 1 false on the stack

 f a lf 

Expects 2 falses on the stack

a f fa

Scoring

This is code-golf, so shortest answer in bytes wins.

Meta

• Is this clear enough?
• I haven't found a duplicate, but anything?
• Tags are code-golf, string and interpreter. Anything else?
• Any further feedback?

Answer 22

Make a karaoke machine

Given a list of lines and a set time (in seconds) which those lines appear, output those lines after that specific amount of seconds.

Example input:

0 Hello there!
5 This line should come up after 5 seconds.
10 This line should come up 5 seconds after that one.
20 There's a 10-second delay here.

Every line will be preceded by an integer, separated from the rest of the line by a string. The number indicates when the line should come up - the first line should be outputted instantly, followed by the next few lines like so:

Hello there! (output instantly)
(wait 5 seconds)
This line should come up after 5 seconds.
(wait 5 seconds)
This line should come up 5 seconds after that one.
(wait 10 seconds)
There's a 10-second delay here.

Assumptions:

• You're guaranteed that the lines are in order - i.e. this doesn't happen:

  5 Hello there!
  0 Oops, this is meant to happen before the first line.
  

• You're also guaranteed that no two lines share the same time.

Winning criteria:

This is code-golf, so shortest code in bytes wins!

Answer 23

Interpolate between binary images

popularity-contestgraphical-output

While there are various ways to interpolate between images with a large color space where for each color there are many similar other colors, it is not so straightforward to do that in a (heavily) quantized color space where you only have few colors available. We now take that to an extreme:

Given two black and white image of the same size as well as a number \$N\$, output a sequence of \$N\$ images that "interpolate" between the two input pictures.

The goal here is coming up with an "interpolation" algorithm that allows you to smoothly transition between two images. But how you define this smoothness is up to you. The more aesthetically pleasing the better.

Details

• "black and white" here means the images consist only of the colors black and white, no grays.
• Validity criteria:
  • The first image in the sequence must be the first input image, and the last image in the sequence must be the second image.
  • All images must have the same size and consist of only black and white pixels. Furthermore the output must be deterministic in the sense that if you repeatedly call the program with identical inputs, you must get identical outputs.
• Please post the sequence of images as an animation in your answer, for any \$N\$ you choose.

Examples

To be defined...

Answer 24

Draw a hexagonal grid n×m of ascii hexagons

  ____
 /    \
/      \
\      /
 \____/

with numbers somewhere within each of them, such as numbers goes in snail order starting in the center (but without empty hexagons):

  ____        ____        ____        ____        ____        ____
 /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \
/      \____/      \____/      \____/      \____/      \____/      \
\      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /
 \____/      \____/      \____/  25  \____/      \____/      \____/
 /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \
/      \____/      \____/  26  \____/  24  \____/      \____/      \
\      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /
 \____/      \____/  27  \____/  11  \____/  23  \____/      \____/
 /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \
/      \____/  28  \____/  12  \____/  10  \____/  22  \____/      \
\      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /
 \____/      \____/  13  \____/  3   \____/  9   \____/  40  \____/
 /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \
/      \____/  29  \____/  4   \____/  2   \____/  21  \____/      \
\      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /
 \____/      \____/  14  \____/  1   \____/  8   \____/  39  \____/
 /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \
/      \____/  30  \____/  5   \____/  7   \____/  20  \____/      \
\      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /
 \____/      \____/  15  \____/  6   \____/  19  \____/  38  \____/
 /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \
/      \____/  31  \____/  16  \____/  18  \____/  37  \____/      \
\      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /
 \____/      \____/  32  \____/  17  \____/  36  \____/      \____/
 /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \
/      \____/      \____/  33  \____/  35  \____/      \____/      \
\      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /
 \____/      \____/      \____/  34  \____/      \____/      \____/
 /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \
/      \____/      \____/      \____/      \____/      \____/      \
\      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /    \      /
 \____/      \____/      \____/      \____/      \____/      \____/

Answer 25

Monokeyed Words

(Based on https://what-if.xkcd.com/75/)

Old mobile phones had letters and numbers assigned to the same key, as follows:

• 1
• 2abc
• 3def
• 4ghi
• 5jkl
• 6mno
• 7pqrs
• 8tuv
• 9wxyz
• 0 [space]

From any given list of words or phrases (arbitrary number of inputs, formed of 0-9 a-z and space), find the word which has the most consecutive characters on the same key, and output the key and the count (in any reasonable format)

for example:

• [nonmonogamous],[qwerty],[false] -> 7, 6 (seven times on the 6 key - nonmonogamous)
• [tutu],[cat],[mouse] -> 4, 8 (four times on the 8 key - tutu)
• [cab],[mon],[tin],[tom] -> 3,2 (cab) or 3,6 (mon) - either answer is valid
• [#],[!!!],[is this valid?] -> any output or error - doesn't fit valid inputs. 2,4 would also be acceptable, for hi in is this valid?
• bacmon, habitat, fringe, be, test, valid -> 3,2 or 3,6 as it's a tie between those keys
• 01452301146 -> 2,1 (two in a row on the 1 key)

The output format isn't fixed, so you could also output [3][6] or 3.6 or 6,3 - anything you like, as long as it's consistent which is the key and which the number of repetitions. You could also use one of the letters to represent the key, if you wanted - e.g. instead of 3,6 you could output 3,m

This is code-golf, usual exclusions etc. apply

Answer 26

Description

Cornhole is a game in which players take turns throwing bags filled with corn kernels(or other fillers) onto a wooden board with a hole in the far end. If a bag goes through the hole, it counts as 3 points. If a bag stays on top of the board without falling off it counts as 1 point.

Score is taken at the end of each round in which the two players throw 4 bags (alternating). Only the net score is calculated.

The first to exactly 21 points is the winner. If a player were to score points in a round that would bring them to exceed 21 points, the points for that round are subtracted from the players score.

Rule

1. Given an array of scores from multiple rounds of Cornhole, determine the current score of the game.

Input

The input will be an array of one or more rounds of scores for each bag throw by both players alternating. (you may choose any 3 distinct symbols to cover the scenario of misses, 1 point, or 3 points)

[0,0,1,0,3,3,1,1,0,0,1,0,3,3,1,1]

• In this scenario
  • Player A missed the first shot, Player B missed their first shot, Player A landed the bag on the board for their second shot, Player B missed their second shot, Player A made it in the hole for their third shot, Player B made it in the hole for their third shot, Player A landed on the board for their fourth shot, and Player B landed on their board for their fourth shot.
  • In the next round of play, Player A missed the first shot, Player B missed their first shot, Player A landed the bag on the board for their second shot, Player B missed their second shot, Player A made it in the hole for their third shot, Player B made it in the hole for their third shot, Player A landed on the board for their fourth shot, and Player B landed on their board for their fourth shot.

Output

The score of the Cornhole match as an array of two numbers. From the input above, the output would be:

[2,0]

Examples:

 Insert multiple samples of scoring, including one example of a player scoring over 21 and losing points

code-golf

Answer 27

SandChallenges for Proposed box [draft] code-golfgridstring

In this challenge you should simulate how "challenges" interact with each other. (You need to output how many iterations have the "challenges" done.)

Symbols used in the documentation

SandChallenges is played on a 3x3 grid.

• X represents a challenge. It challenges the grid next to its position.

• represents an empty sandpile. This is what the "challenges" move in their actions.

• . represents moving sandpiles and is only used in this documentation. Input will never contain those characters; it instead will only contain X and .

A closer look at X challenges

There are sandpiles between those "challenges". When a "challenge" is active, it pushes sand towards the next grid. The next grid is described as the following:

• The next grid is usually the grid on the right.
• If the grid is on the right edge, the next grid becomes the first grid of the next line.
• If the grid is on the last line, the next grid becomes the first grid of the first line.

ABC
DEF
GHI

The next grid of A is B, the next grid of C is D, and the next grid of I is A.

---

Another rule: they can get buried by active sandpiles. This makes them fail to function.

Test cases

Spaces are replaced with semicolons for readability problems.

X;;
;;;
;;;

-> (Affecting the next cell)

X.;
;;;
;;;

->

X..    X..    X..           X..
;;; -> .;; -> ..; -> ... -> ...
;;;    ;;;    ;;;           ...

After that the "challenge" gets buried by active sandpiles, which results in the following state:

...
...
...

This box had went through 9 changes before it stops.

---

XXX    ...
XXX -> ...
XXX    ...

This means that the challenge had went through 1 change before it stops. All of them push active sand and buries themselves simultaneously.

---

X;;    X.;
;X; -> ;X.
;;X    ;;X

The bottom-right challenge shoots active sand, which buries the active challenge in the same iteration:

..;    ...    ...    ...
;X. -> ;X. -> .X. -> ...
;;X    .;X    ..X    ...

This goes through 4 iterations.

---

X;;    X.;    X..    ...
X;; -> X.; -> X.. -> ...
X;;    X.;    X..    ...

This goes though 3 iterations.

---

X;X    X.X    ...    ...
;X; -> .X. -> ... -> ...
;X;    ;X.    .X.    ...

This goes through 3 iterations.

---

X;X    ..X    ...
;X; -> .X. -> ...
X;X    X.X    ...
This goes through 2 iterations.

Rules

• Input/output can be given by any convenient method.
• You can print it to STDOUT or return it as a function result.
• Either a full program or a function are acceptable.
• Any amount of extraneous whitespace is permitted, provided the characters line up appropriately.
• Standard loopholes are forbidden.
• This is code-golf so the shortest code wins.

Meta

• Is this clear enough? Any better wordings for sections?
• Is this a duplicate?
• Tags are code-golf and grid and string. Any suggestions?
• Any further feedback?

Answer 28

Sandbox reviewers, thanks for checking this out. I posted this question (after a few revisions) as a code challenge and pretty much no one likes it. Please give some feedback as to why it's not appropriate, clear, fun, or whatever other criticism you have. I think it's a very interesting problem and I'd love to see some other approaches to it along with some interesting language choices :).

I think the main criticism is how to measure accuracy. I've added a script to calculate a score between the competition video and whatever video contestants submit. Please tell me why that is insufficient, or unfair, unclear, etc.

Again, any feedback for improvement is welcome! I really want to see some interesting solutions :).

Thanks again for reviewing!

TITLE: Reconstruct a video where the frames' pixels have been shuffled

Given a video where all the pixels of every frame have been scrambled with some image scrambling function T(frame), reconstruct the original. T only operates on one frame at a time and has no persistent state between invocations. It's just a constant random map that shuffles pixels to new locations each frame. T is constant and performs the same permutation each frame.

Essentially you have to recover all of the spatial information that's been removed.

Prepare to bake your noodle golfers, this is a doozy!

Background

Since the spatial mapping needs to be determined, the scrambled video source needs to be something with significant motion. An example would be an episode of your favorite sitcom. Lots of colors, lots of movement between and around frames.

Simple example of the scrambling function T(frame):

SourceImage = [44,22,33,55]

T(SourceImage) = [33,44,22,55]

T maps {0:2, 1:0, 2:1, 3:3}

This example has the image in a 1D array. For the problem however, the image would be a 2D RGB image.

Rules

• You are allowed to process the entire video to determine Ti.
• Ti does not have to be a 100% perfect inverse, which my not even be possible depending on the input.
• No loopholes. Your program should at a minimum take the example scrambled video as input ('scrambled_city.mp4' below) and output the unscrambled video that is as close to the original as possible ('city.mp4').
• After producing the output video, calculate your score with the provided average MSE python script below.
• Submit your unscrambled program source, your average MSE score and your calculated unscrambled video file, see Submission below.
• Providing your source code and unscrambled video lets the hivemind confirm your submission is honest.

Scoring

The answer which most accurately reconstructs the video is the winner. Accuracy will be calculated as the avgerage of Mean Squared Error (MSE) of all hidden source and corresponding reconstructed frames, nothing fancy, and should be as close to 0 as possible.

Notes

• Unscrambling a randomly shuffled image by itself is impossible. A video is different, it's possible to some degree.
• Feel free to post any algorithms already known to accomplish this.
• This problem is very difficult so if you can generate any unscrambled images that don't look like pure garbage consider yourself a success.

Competition Videos

Hidden source video 'city.mp4': Full Hidden Source Video Your algorithm should work without access to this!

Scrambled video (seed 9001) 'scrambled_city.mp4': Full Scrambled Video - 2GB

source webpage for other videos to use

Python code to generate test cases for you:

This will take a video (infile) and output it's scrambled version (outfile).

Dependency: opencv2+ (pip3 install opencv-python)

import cv2

infile = 'city.mp4'
outfile = 'scrambled_city.avi'
seed = 9001

def scramble(image):
    copy = image.copy()
    # reset the seed each frame so we have constant transform function.
    cv2.setRNGSeed(seed) 
    cv2.randShuffle(copy)
    return copy

# Open video, read first frame
vidcap = cv2.VideoCapture(infile)
success,image = vidcap.read()

# Create video writer with same dimensions
h,w,layers = image.shape
size = (w,h)
outvideo = cv2.VideoWriter(outfile,cv2.VideoWriter_fourcc(*'MPEG'), 30, size, True)
print( 'videosize: %s\n'%repr(size))

count = 0
while success:
    scrambled = scramble(image)
    # DUMP SCRAMBLED JPG
    #cv2.imwrite("frame%d.jpg" % count, scrambled)

    # VIDEO FRAME OUTPUT
    outvideo.write(scrambled)

    print( 'frame: %d   %s'%(count,str(success)) , end='\r') 
    count += 1
    success,image = vidcap.read()

outvideo.release()
vidcap.release()

Python code to calculate avg Mean Square Error over two videos

import cv2
import numpy as np

infile1 = 'city.mp4'
infile2 = 'scrambled_city.avi'

# https://www.pyimagesearch.com/2014/09/15/python-compare-two-images/
def mse(imageA, imageB):
    # the 'Mean Squared Error' between the two images is the
    # sum of the squared difference between the two images;
    # NOTE: the two images must have the same dimension
    err = np.sum((imageA.astype("float") - imageB.astype("float")) ** 2)
    err /= float(imageA.shape[0] * imageA.shape[1])
    
    # return the MSE, the lower the error, the more "similar"
    # the two images are
    return err

# Open video, read first frame
vid1 = cv2.VideoCapture(infile1)
success1,image1 = vid1.read()
vid2 = cv2.VideoCapture(infile2)
success2,image2 = vid2.read()
count = 0
sumMSE = 0
while success1 and success2:
    sumMSE += mse(image1,image2)
    count += 1
    print( 'frame: %d    avgMSE=%f'%(count,sumMSE/float(count)) , end='\r') 
    success1,image1 = vid1.read()
    success2,image2 = vid2.read()

print("\n[Frames: %d] Avg MSE = %f"%(count,sumMSE/float(count)))
vid1.release()
vid2.release()

Example output avgMSE of city.mp4 and scrambled_city.avi:

[Frames: 5113] avg MSE = 18079.870445918445

Example output avgMSE of city.mp4 and city.mp4:

[Frames: 5113] avg MSE = 0.000000

SUBMISSION + HIDDEN TEST CASES

When you're ready to submit your solution, please score your submission against the example video and for fun include unscrambled versions of the three test cases below.

First (required):

• Your solution code. No code provided is disqualification.
• Submit the avg MSE for your reconstructed 'scrambled_city.mp4' and the first example video, 'city.mp4', you calculate from the provided python script.
• Your unscrambled video file (suggestion: host on youtube or G-drive).
• You do not need to include your calculation of T or Ti, the visual media you provide (step above) will be enough to prove your algorithm works and score it.

~~ Lowest score wins. Good luck! ~~

Second (optional for fun): You can submit your completely unscrambled videos OR you can submit the unscrambled frames 250,500,750,1000 for all 3 of the test cases below. It will be pretty clear if you solved it or not. They're very recognizable scenes.

Note: The youtube preview is terribly distorted. The downloaded files are much better quality.

video 1

video 2

video 3 - HARD

Answer 29

How long should this song last?

Enter the world of sheet music. A composition (the musical piece, which may or may not be a song) is divided into bars. The length of a bar is defined by the time signature. The time signature states how the bar is divided into beats, and what length of note carries the beat.

Note lengths are always powers of 2. 4 means a quarter note, 2 a half note, 8 an eighth note (or a quaver if you're a snob), etcetera. A half note (2) is twice the length of a quarter note (4), which is itself twice the length of a quaver (8), and so on.

A time signature may look like this: 3/4. The 4 means that the quarter note carries the beat, and the 3 means that there are 3 of them in one bar. 3/2 means there are three half-notes in a beat, 7/8 means there are seven quavers, and so on.

Now, the actual speed at which a piece is to be performed depends on the tempo. That is usually expressed in beats per minute (bpm). The tempo also defines the note carrying the beat (usually the same as the one in the time signature but not always). So, you can have the time signature be 8=150, meaning there are 150 quavers in a minute (in the sheet music it would be notated ♪=150).

Both tempo and time signature can change throughout the composition.

Challenge

Use the following format for your input (or something very similar). It is a list of events:

[1,"4/4"],
[1,"4=120"],
[521,""]

This is the simplest form. It is a list of integer-string pairs (you're obviously free to go with string-string pairs if it makes your program simpler). The integer defines at which bar the event happens (starting from 1), and the string defines what happens there. If it is in the form of x/y, then it is a new time signature. If it is in the form of x=y, you have a new tempo. Lastly, an empty string designates the end of the score (exclusive, so the above example has 520 bars).

With changes, the format may look like this:

[1,"4/4"],
[1,"2=120"],
[46, "4=155"],
[67, "5/4"],
[68, "4/4"],
[152,""]

The output of the program should be the duration of the entire piece in "xm ys" (where x is the number of minutes and y is the number of seconds. You can leave out the "ys" part if there's no spare seconds, but it is not necessary).

This is code-golf, so shortest code wins!

Important note!

Real artists do not follow the tempo exactly. Only beginners use a metronome to match the exact number of seconds as notated; more experienced musicians know to dynamically speed up or slow down depending on the mood, their personal preference, etcetera. Therefore, it is perfectly acceptable for your answer to be up to 34% higher or lower than the "correct" answer. Also, the minimum length of a composition is 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

Test cases

1.

[1,"4/4"],
[1,"4=120"],
[521,""]

The time signature has 4 quarter notes a bar, and 520 bars, so 4*520=2080 quarter notes. There's 120 quarter notes per minute, so 2080/120=17.333 minutes, or 17m 20s.

2.

[1,"4/4"],
[1,"8=120"],
[46, "4=155"],
[66, "5/4"],
[76, "6/8"],
[152,""]

For the first 45 bars, there's 4 quarter notes a bar, so that's 45*4=180 quarter notes. Now the tempo is 120 8th notes per minute, which is 60 quarter notes per minute, meaning the first bit lasts 180/60=3 minutes.

Then a tempo change: from bar 46 to 67 there's 20 bars of 4/4 (thus 4*20=80 quarter notes), and at 155 quarter notes per minute you add 155/80=1.94 minutes = 1m 56s. Total is 4m 56s.

Then a time signature change: 10 bars of 5 quarter notes per bar = 50 quarter notes. 155/50 = 3.1 minutes = 3m 6s. Total is 8m 2s.

Then another time signature change. 6 eighth notes per bar for 76 bars is 76*6=456 eighth notes. Tempo is still 155 quarter notes per minute, which is 310 eighth notes per minute. 456/310=1.471 minutes = 1m 28s. Total comes down to 9m 39s.

3. (The third movement of Shostakovich's second piano concerto, you get 5 bytes off if you listen to this while programming ^{(not really but more people need to listen to Shosty dammit)})

[1, "2/4"],
[1, "4=176"],
[75, "7/8"],
[102, "6/8"],
[103, "7/8"],
[106, "3/8"],
[107, "7/8"],
[109, "2/4"],
[112, "3/4"],
[113, "2/4"],
[116, "3/4"],
[117, "2/4"],
[120, "3/4"],
[121, "2/4"],
[124, "3/4"],
[125, "2/4"],
[155, "7/8"],
[160, "2/4"],
[175, "7/8"],
[180, "2/4"],
[181, "6/8"],
[182, "2/4"],
[186, "7/8"],
[188, "2/4"],
[222, "7/8"],
[225, "2/4"],
[286, "7/8"],
[308, "9/8"],
[309, "7/8"],
[314, "2/4"],
[317, "3/4"],
[318, "2/4"],
[321, "3/4"],
[322, "2/4"],
[325, "3/4"],
[326, "2/4"],
[329, "3/4"],
[330, "2/4"],
[356, ""]

Calculation is too long to show here, but it comes down to 4m 47s. The video is 5m 24s, proving my point that this is not an exact rule but rather a guideline.

Tags

code-golf number music

Sandbox

Does this look like an interesting puzzle? Any tags I miss? Is the +/-34% allowance large enough to matter, or should it be more?

Answer 30

Deathmatch Football (Soccer)

Idea:

2 Teams each of 11 Players and 3 Bank Players compete in a match of 90 minutes to find out who's the best. But... it wouldn't be deathmatch with no casualties, so after scoring, there is a chance to die. Better think twice before you shoot...

Teams:

Each Team is represanted as a String of 14 chars (11 + 3). Every char az-AZ is unique to the whole match. So 2 teams could look like this

Team1: {"a","c","f","g","j","k","A","D","E","H","I","k","n","o"} //bank: k, n, o
Team2: {"b","d","e","h","i","l","B","C","F","G","J","l","m","P"} //bank: l, m, P

The Game:

The game lasts for 90 (+3) minutes. Every minute each team has one chance to score a goal. The player who's shooting gets randomly selected. The chance of a player to score a goal is the byte value of the char.

Example: "z" has a value of 122, so he has a chance of 122% (>=100%) means he will definetely score

If he scores he will die with a chance of his byte value / 2

Example: "z" has a value of 122, so he has a chance of 61% to die.

Special Events:

• At minute 45, 60 and 75 a random player from the bank comes into the team (teams are not limited to 11 players, if no one has died yet)
• If there is a draw at minute 90 OR both teams have less than 5 players, the game lasts for additional 3 minutes (90 + 3)
• If a team has 0 players the game is over

Result and Rating:

Once a match is over. Display both teams, the final score, and the top scorer including goals.

Team1: {"a","f","A","D","p"}
Team2: {"b","e","h","P"}
Score: 20:18 // So Team1 won
Top Scorer: A=>5

The code with less bytes is the winner.

Extra Notes:

You are free to choose the form of the output as long as you can clearly see the remianing teams, who won and the top scorer. No loopholes, do i need to say that?

code-golf