# Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

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

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
• 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 needs more feedback, but it's been ignored, you can ask for feedback in The Nineteenth Byte. It's not only allowed, but highly recommended!

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".

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# Lists of power

Generate the following list of lists.

[[0], [1], [2, 4, 8, 6], [3, 9, 7, 1], [4, 6], [5], [6], [7, 9, 3, 1], [8, 4, 2, 6], [9, 1]]


This is , so shortest answer (as measured in bytes) wins.

• Definitely clear enough. But... (I guess most people would be able to figure out the pattern. It's okay to let answerers to deduce something) Mar 4 '21 at 2:21
• Should I print the exact string (which kolmogorov-complexity implies) or is it fine to write a function that returns an equivalent structure (or print the equivalent structure in the chosen language's way)? Mar 4 '21 at 4:23
• @Bubbler Ah, I thought kolmogorov-complexity just meant it does exactly one thing... The challenge is to write a program or function that creates the structure, not necessarily the string. Mar 4 '21 at 6:44
• @hakr14 I think you need to include the last sentence in your challenge. Mar 6 '21 at 20:39

# Sequential Multiplication Magic Squares

(Inspired by this question for a 5x5 and this question for a 4x4 magic square on the Puzzling SE sites.)

For this challenge, a sequential multiplication magic square is an NxN square filled with numbers 1..N² where the product of any M-th row equals the product of the M-th column. That is, the product of the first row is equal to the product of the first column, the product of the second row is equal to the product of the second column etc.

For example, one such 3x3 square might be as follows, but other similar results are valid as well:

9 8 3
4 5 2
6 1 7


Notably, there is no such square for N=2.

## Challenge

Given a side size N of 1 or larger, output a valid NxN sequential multiplication magic square, or any distinct falsy value if none exists.

Standard loopholes apply, any convenient input-output, this is so the shortest code in bytes wins.

## Sample cases

1 → [1]

2 → any distinct falsy value

3 → [[9, 8, 3],
[4, 5, 2],
[6, 1, 7]]

4 → [[16,  3, 12,  4],
[ 9, 10, 14,  1],
[ 8,  7, 11, 15],
[ 2,  6,  5, 13]]

5 → [[ 7, 16,  6,  3, 25],
[ 5, 13, 22, 12, 24],
[ 9, 11, 17, 14,  4],
[20, 18, 21, 19,  1],
[ 8, 10,  2, 15, 23]]

• There's quite a lot of questions on magic squares already, I couldn't find one that addresses the above scenario though. I'm not sure whether this is unique enough? Mar 4 '21 at 16:47
• I'm pretty sure it is not a dupe, but code-golf doesn't sound very interesting (mainly because one can generate all possible boards and find one that meets the condition). fastest-code would be more interesting, though in that case you'll need to run every single submission on your machine for fair comparison of speed. Mar 4 '21 at 23:15
• May I error in place of a "distinct falsy value"? Mar 4 '21 at 23:27

# Three, Three, No

• Some test cases (with example outputs) would be nice. Also, it is discouraged to include input verification in a code golf challenge. Mar 3 '21 at 4:56
• Do you want to allow programs to take input in unary? Mar 3 '21 at 6:05
• @Bubbler Actually I think that the input verification is a part of the challenge in this case. Because of the asymptotic time complexity requirement, you need some case-working in the algorithm anyway. Mar 3 '21 at 6:06
• @user202729 It does require some casework, but if the existence of an answer is guaranteed, you can still cut an entire if-branch (a test and a code to report failure, the latter of which is superfluous and closer to a boilerplate than a core task IMO). Mar 3 '21 at 9:32
• @Bubbler Depends on what you consider to be valid input. The challenge is just "Given a sequence, print whether there exists a partition and the partition itself if there exists" Mar 3 '21 at 9:40
• @Bubbler And op doesn't require some long error message to be printed, right? This is closer to the "general falsy value". Mar 3 '21 at 9:40
• @Bubbler So I should change it to assume that all inputs have a permutation that works? Mar 3 '21 at 20:42
• @Bubbler I've added some test cases. Mar 3 '21 at 20:47
• @user101295 So I should change it to assume that all inputs have a permutation that works? -- You don't need to strictly follow it. You'll need to include a few more test cases for the "impossible" situation though. Mar 4 '21 at 4:28
• @Bubbler Updated. Mar 4 '21 at 22:33

## Syslog PRI Conversion

This is my first CodeGolf post, so I expect some errors my content.

The rsyslogd utility has been a tool used throughout time to handle and parse logs either over an IP network or even locally. As many of you might know, this tool utilizes the basic syslog protocol.

The syslog protocol handles both a Facility and a Severity level in one integer, called Priority. The formula to extract these levels is as follows:

Priority = Facility * 8 + Level

In this challenge, your task is to write an application that converts a Priority value from the syslog protocol into a human readable format. The application must take input from STDIN, and output both the Severity and Facility string associated with the numerical code.

The numerical code/type table is as follows:

Int     Severity
0       Emergency
2       Critical
3       Error
4       Warning
5       Notice
6       Informational
7       Debug

Int     Facility
0       kernel messages
1       user-level messages
2       mail system
3       system daemons
4       security/authorization messages
5       internal
6       line printer subsystem
7       network news subsystem
8       UUCP subsystem
9       clock daemon
10      security/authorization messages
11      FTP daemon
12      NTP subsystem
13      log audit
15      clock daemon
16      local0
17      local1
18      local2
19      local3
20      local4
21      local5
22      local6
23      local7


The format of the outputted text may be any style you like, as long as it retains its human readable characteristics.

Examples

mail system, Critical\n

mail system\n
Critical\n

mail system - Critical\n

mail system Critical\n


Example

Given a PRI value of 103, your program must output:

NTP Subsystem, Debug


The shortest answer in bytes wins!

• I don't see any glaring issues, though it isn't particularly interesting (outputting strings based on a lookup table has been done multiple times). Mar 9 '21 at 0:34
• Do you happen to have any suggestions that would make it more appealing? Also, Thanks for the feedback. Mar 9 '21 at 15:09

This is an challenge where the aim is to write an interpreter for a specific language ("language X") in another language ("language Y"). Languages X and Y must be completely distinct, that is they must not be different versions of the same language, nor the same language itself. The next answer should then write an interpreter for language Z in language Y, and so on.

Interpreters do not need to fully implement the language, just a Turing-complete subset. In order to be a valid interpreter, it must have some way of inputting a string of code and a number (potentially zero) of inputs. One example may be a function that takes the code and inputs as an argument.

You may not reuse languages (so each language will be in exactly 2 answers - as an interpreter and being interpreted). Different versions of languages count as the same language, so long as they are considered to be different versions of the same language (e.g. Python 2 and 3, or Seriously and Actually)

You must wait 3 hours between posting and cannot post twice in a row. The challenge ends after a week has passed with no new answers. Your score is equal to the number of answers you have posted, with a higher score being better

• I'm confused. Do you mean that you first write an interpreter for language Y in language X, and then an interpreter for Z in Y? Or do you just write interpreters for X, Z, etc. all in Y? Could you give a small example to make it clearer?
– user
Mar 10 '21 at 3:46
• I think as well that you have "X" and "Y" swapped in your first sentence. Regarding "Interpreters do not need to fully implement the language, just a Turing-complete subset.", have you considered requiring the next answer to use the same Turing-complete subset in order to be interpretable by the previous one?
– Leo
Mar 10 '21 at 4:15
• This seems like a good challenge, but it's currently worded in a confusing manner. An example would probably fix that. Also, would making some sort of custom language be allowed? Mar 10 '21 at 4:21
• If I’m writing a Python interpreter in JavaScript, can I write a polyglot implementation of Rule 110 and submit eval as my interpreter, since the “Turing complete subset” of Python I support is that single program? Mar 10 '21 at 15:17

# SSD optimize

Given $$\n\$$ pages, each page containing $$\m\$$ sectors, write three functions: (Here x and y are sectors)

1. insert(x) that stores the input(temporary sector) into a sector,
2. remove(x) that removes one, and
3. get(x) that return a sector containing the element.

You can call these functions:

1. copy(y,x) that copy a sector from x to y, and
2. clear(x) that clears the page containing x, can only be called $$\k\$$ times for each page.

There'll never be more than(can equal to) $$\p\%mn\$$ elements required to store. Your score is the numbers of call before you fail. Everyone can provide test case for any program.

$$\n=256, m=16, p=75, k=100\$$.

For example, if a solution don't do any clear and just place inputs into $$\(1,1), (1,2), \cdots, (n,m)\$$, someone else can write and remove till you use up all space:

insert\*3072, (delete, insert)*1025, get


The last get can't get anything and is a fail, so the score is 5122.

Highest score wins. Robber's winning criticia TODO.

• I work with SSD firmware as my job. I just wanted to point out a real story: it is a real PITA to optimize SSD lifetime depending on the user workload. The relevant components include multiple dozen C files, each file being up to tens of kilobytes. The algorithms involved have been accumulated for over a decade, and are still evolving. (This doesn't mean the challenge is inherently bad, as we can explore possible optimizations at the amateur level, which is interesting in its own right.) Mar 16 '21 at 4:14
• It is somewhat unclear how $p=75$ is applied in the insert\*3072, (delete, insert)*1025, get workload. Did you mean 75% of the entire space? (in which case $p=3072$ or $p=0.75mn$ would be more accurate) Mar 16 '21 at 4:35
• @Bubbler the % is missing
– l4m2
Mar 16 '21 at 4:36
• For the winning criteria: you could make it a single-challenge CnR (like this). Initially, a cop posts a submission with their own estimate of the score. Then a robber tries to reduce the cops' scores by finding worse scenarios, and the robber takes the reduced score as their own score. A cop with the highest final score wins; a robber with the highest "robbed" total score wins. (Check out more specific rules in the linked challenge) Mar 16 '21 at 4:55
• You should really add some background story to your question. Currently, I cannot understand anything in it. What are pages? What are sectors? How are these 5 functions works? What does clear mean? And why should I clear it? What does get do? Am I designed to storage some data between each invokes?
– tsh
Mar 17 '21 at 9:18
• Your example $(1,1), (1,2), \cdots, (n,m)$ is a list with 4096 elements in it. Won't it run up after 4096 iterations? What is 5122 here? Are $n=256, m=16, p=75, k=100$ some given parameter to these 3 functions?
– tsh
Mar 17 '21 at 9:25
• @tsh It's a promise that you don't store more than n*m*p% datas, so when reaching 3072 you have to erase some, adding movements
– l4m2
Mar 17 '21 at 9:29

# Build a Markdown to HTML converter

The Stack Exchange network uses Markdown as the syntax for writing posts. For example, using a # at the beginning of a line creates a heading (<h1>) while two hashes ## creates a subheading (<h2>).
Your task is to write a program which takes input as a syntactically valid Markdown string and outputs its HTML equivalent. (This program might find use as a means to transfer SE posts to one's own website.)
The only Markdown "commands" you need to support are the backtick (becomes a tag named code, styling provided), the hashes (# becomes h1, ## becomes h2 and ### becomes h3), and the > (blockquote). The rest may be left intact.

For example, if the input is

# Some text
## Part 1
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet


Then the output should be

<h1>Some text</h1>
<h2>Part 1</h1>
Lorem <code>ipsum</code> dolor sit amet


Leading spaces are acceptable for the headings as they are mandatory in Markdown, but trailing spaces are not (you may assume the input has no trailing spaces). Except for the inline code, all commands will be displayed as blocks and will be on separate lines. For example

# Some text ## Another


is not a valid input because there is a block command on the same line as another block command. You may assume that the input contains no < or > except for blockquote notation, you must also follow the guidelines exactly, so no outputting HTML which renders the same result but in a different way.

Second test case:

### Subheading
> This is some heading with code in it.


becomes

<h3>Subheading</h3>
<blockquote>This is some heading with <code>code</code> in it.</blockquote>


This is , so the shortest answer in bytes wins.

• HTML use <code> instead of <shortsnippet>. Are you defining yet another target language?
– tsh
Mar 16 '21 at 11:34
• May I assume input will never contains <> other than block quote notation? Or, what should I do if input contains one? For example, for input 3 < 2, should I yield something like 3 &lt; 2?
– tsh
Mar 16 '21 at 11:36
• @tsh Oops, didn't know about that one, editing that in. You may assume that the input will never contain < or > except for blockquote notation.
– user100690
Mar 16 '21 at 12:10
• "but trailing spaces are not" should I assume the input will not contains trailing spaces too? or should i strip spaces at end of inputs when i generate html? Does this only apply to space (U+0020) or any whitespace characters?
– tsh
Mar 17 '21 at 1:32
• Should I output exactly same string as example output? Or may I output something HTML may render same results?
– tsh
Mar 17 '21 at 3:21
• Will the code ever contain unmatched backticks on a line? Mar 24 '21 at 4:28

Output a random pair of twin primes. Every pair should possibly appear and the program should have zero possibility to fall into infinite loop. Notice that we don't know if there are infinite many pairs so you need some fallbacks to avoid finding a not-existing pair.

• Define twin primes Mar 22 '21 at 19:25
• I'm a bit confused, why is 23 a 9-distant prime when |2⁴ - 23| = 7. Why did you raise 2 to specifically the fifth power? Or is both, and also a 22, 21, 19, 15, 7, 9, 41, etc... distant prime? Mar 17 '21 at 4:22
• @Medix2 yes it is all of those. Mar 17 '21 at 4:50

Sometimes, we accidentally have trailing whitespace in test cases, and some helpful person notices and fixes that. Thank you, helpful people.

But what if we want to take a string without trailing whitespace and add some?

Your challenge is to write a program that takes a string as input and adds between 1 and 10 spaces (randomly) to the end of each line.

## Rules

Between 1 and 10 (inclusive) spaces (" ") must be added to each line. There must be a nonzero chance of getting any number of spaces on any line.

This is , shortest wins.

Apologies if this already exists - It's really hard to search.

• "just before each newline and the end of file" "trailing whitespace"?
– tsh
Mar 23 '21 at 1:42
• @tsh Sorry for being confusing. Rewrote. Is this a good challenge? Mar 23 '21 at 8:08
• Maybe to make the challenge a bit harder require an additional line to the file with random number of spaces, because then less trivial answers
– user100690
Mar 23 '21 at 16:16

Posted to main

# Count What You See code-golfnumbersequence

You may have heard of the Look-and-say sequence, which is generated by reading off the digits of previous entries in the sequence. Here, you will be tasked to generate the "Count-and-say sequence".

In general, the sequence can be generated as follows:

1. Start with an arbitrary sequence of numbers (e.g. 1, 1, 1, 3, 2, 1, 2).
2. Count the occurrences of each number as adjective noun pairs -> "four 1, one 3, two 2", in order of 1st appearance. In the example, this means that you must first count 1s, then 3s, then 2s, since that is the order in which the numbers first appear in the sequence.
3. Write out the result from step 2 numerically ("four 1, one 3, two 2" -> 4, 1, 1, 3, 2, 2).
4. Append the result from step 3 to the original sequence to get 1, 1, 1, 3, 2, 1, 2, 4, 1, 1, 3, 2, 2.
5. Repeat the steps above to continue the sequence.

Your task is to output the "Count-and-say sequence", such that the sequence starts with 1. You may choose to:

• Take an input $$\ n \$$ and output the first $$\ n \$$ integers.
• Take an input $$\ n \$$ and output the $$\ n \$$-th integer.
• Output the sequence indefinitely.

For convenience, here are the first 100 numbers in the sequence (also A217780):

1, 1, 1, 3, 1, 4, 1, 1, 3, 6, 1, 2, 3, 1, 4, 8, 1, 3, 3, 2, 4, 1, 6, 1, 2, 11, 1, 5, 3, 3, 4, 2, 6, 3, 2, 1, 8, 13, 1, 8, 3, 4, 4, 3, 6, 5, 2, 2, 8, 1, 11, 1, 5, 16, 1, 10, 3, 6, 4, 4, 6, 7, 2, 4, 8, 2, 11, 3, 5, 1, 13, 18, 1, 12, 3, 9, 4, 6, 6, 9, 2, 5, 8, 3, 11, 4, 5, 2, 13, 1, 16, 1, 10, 1, 7, 22, 1, 14, 3, 11


# Equalizing fractions

• I've edited this down to a stub now that it's been posted to save space Apr 1 '21 at 21:13

# Node one-liner to fetch a URL, like curl

I'm interested in the shortest one-liner to output the contents at a given URL, using Node.js from the command line, for practical purposes. In other words, the equivalent of curl, written as a Node one-liner.

Not interested in other languages. Would this respect the site's rules, or does it belong on SO?

Rules:

1. The URL is passed via the command line, so accessed via process.argv[1]
2. Must invoke node with the -e argument, followed by the code, followed by the URL
3. Only the length of the actual script passed to node via -e "..." is counted.

My best solution so far, with http://x.com as a conveniently short example, is:

node -r got -e "require('got')(process.argv[1]).then(r=>console.log(r.body))" http://x.com

• You can make it a tips question
– user
Apr 2 '21 at 12:03

Program-Write a program to display repeating terms of a given sentence.

Explanation-the program must output the repeating terms of two or more letters from the given input(input is a sentence seperated be spaces without any punctuation except the full-stop indicating the end.) For example, if input is the sentence "I am an ameture mathemagician" the outupt must be am, ma, an. ( not that em is not a valid output as it is separated by space)

Example-

input->International competitions are better than intercollege ones.

output-> Inter, ti, er, tion, io,on,ion, tio, co, on,.......etc (t, l must not be included as they are 1 letter.) (Upper lower Cases do not matter)

Test cases-

input-> aabcde cdec

output-> cde, cd, de

input-> aab aacab

output-> aa, ab

input-> aaa aabcaaa ababa

output-> aaa, aa, ab, aba, ba

Winning Criterion:- code golf

• You say tt and ll aren't included, but then have aa as an example output. Also, what if two things overlap? In ababa, is aba included? Apr 3 '21 at 13:33
• Thanx edited accordingly. Apr 3 '21 at 13:44
• Is the input always going to contain at least 1 space? And can input be taken as a list of words (e.g. ['aab', 'aacab']) instead of a space-separated string? Additionally, I'd suggest mentioning something about the case of the input. For example, case-wise, your example (International ...) only has inter repeated if case is ignored Apr 4 '21 at 0:20

# Getting to the root of the problem

While I was sleeping in my bed, unwilling to wake up, an idea entered my head: why is the syntax for powers, especially roots, so cumbersome? It would save so many bytes if we could just use the square root symbol instead, and easier to understand too. So, your challenge is to encode this in whatever format you choose, in as few bytes possible.

a) convert a string such as 2**(1/2) into √2 or some other format that distinguishes it from 2√2 (note, if you choose to write 2√2 as 2 * √2 and write things like 2**(1/3) as 3√2, that is allowed).

b) Work for arbitrary powers (2**(1/50) should work fine).

c) Simplify roots. (4**(1/4) = √2)

and should be able to perform this on inputted strings.

Deduct 10% from your score if you can handle addition of roots, deduct a further 10% off that if you can handle the ret of the basic operators (-, *, /), another 10% if you can simplify expressions such as (2 - √2)/(2 + √2), another 10% if you can write 16**1/4 (for example) as √(2^2), and, if you're amazing enough to implement exponentiation, you can subtract 50%.

Input will be presented in the form of [0-9]**([0-9]/[0-9]), where the 0-9s can be any number of digits. Output should ideally be in the form of [0-9] * [0-9]√[0-9], again, with the 0-9s being any number of digits, but I will let other forms slide so long as as 3√2 (that's the cube root of 2) is distinguishable from 3 * √2.

Tags:

Lowest score wins. Good luck!

• This is a good challenge, at least part A looks good, but it will need to be clarified. Ideally put a regex that objectively tells what input we need to handle (like whether we should handle whitespace (which we probably shouldn't have to)). The bonuses are most likely unnescessary. Apr 4 '21 at 1:50
• The bonuses might be unnecessary, but if someone can write a creative answer that does all of that, it'd probably be an even better answer than one that just does the minimum, and might score lower (I was generous with the bonuses to encourage going the extra mile, and you can get a reduction of over 70% from them). About the input, I'll fix that now. Apr 4 '21 at 10:02
• Also this is going to be important to my tie-in puzzle, "Returning to the root of the problem", and having those bonuses done now will improve your overall score (yes this may well be a series). Apr 4 '21 at 10:12
• Should 72**(1/6) be 2V2*3V3?
– l4m2
Apr 6 '21 at 13:33
• You can do it as such if you want to. Apr 6 '21 at 13:51

# Computer Tree

Consider an infinite amount of same computers building a tree, running same program. Each computer has infinite memory and infinite pins 0 to Infinity, where pin 0 connect to its parent, or the IO we see for the root; and pin 1..Inf connect to its childs.

Each connection is bidirectional, and has buffer in each direction. Writer put the value into buffer, and reader gets from it.

The computers need to support these abilities: (Here dest is a variable in the memory, and src1, src2 are either variable or immediate integers. [x] mean the memory in address x.

dest = src1 op src2, op in +,-,*
[dest] = src1
dest = [src1]
if(src1 op src2) goto inst, op in <,==,<=,!=
if((not)pin src1 writing) goto inst
write src2 to pin src1, block if already writing


It's fine if you need several elements to do one job above, but each job defined above should use same amount of time(In this model timing matters). It's also fine if you take input as some other formats, but to avoid taking too ready functions, an same-type input shouldn't lead to an infinite loop. Input for root is given when started and will never need to wait unless all input used up, but it doesn't always halt.

Shortest code win.

# Interpret a Cangjie Input Method String

The Cangjie input method is a method for inputting Chinese characters using a standard QWERTY-like keyboard. Each Chinese character is encoded as a sequence of Latin letters, each letter representing a radical, or part, of the character's form. Each letter encodes both the radical character it represents, as well as other, related radicals (such as E encoding 水 as well as 氵, and more).

There are 24 radicals encoded in Cangjie, as well as 3 other characters for wild cards and other purposes. For the purposes of this challenge, only the subset of the main 4 groups are used, shown below with meanings:

Philosophical group
A   日 sun
B   月 moon
C   金 gold
D   木 wood
E   水 water
F   火 fire
G   土 land

Stroke group
H   竹 bamboo
I   戈 dagger axe
J   十 ten
K   大 big
L   中 centre
M   一 one
N   弓 bow

Body parts group
O   人 person
P   心 heart
Q   手 hand
R   口 mouth

Character shapes group
S   尸 corpse
T   廿 twenty
U   山 mountain
V   女 woman
W   田 field
Y   卜 fortune telling


## Cangjie Basic Rules

Characters are analyzed as such to create a Cangjie code (based on the Wikipedia article above):

• Direction of decomposition: left to right, top to bottom, outside to inside
• Geometrically connected forms: takes 4 Cangjie codes from the 1st code to the last code
• Geometrically unconnected forms:
• Forms in exactly 2 subforms: Follow the direction of decomposition rules, then take the first and last codes of of the first subform, and the first, second, and last code of the second subform.
• Forms in more than 2 subforms: take the first and last codes of the first subform according to direction of decomposition, then break the remainder into subforms. Take the first and last codes of the first remainder, and the last code of the last remainder.

## The Challenge

Write a full program or function that, when given a valid Cangjie code string as input, outputs its corresponding traditional Chinese character.

• Use Cangjie version 5.
• Standard loopholes are forbidden.
• An invalid Cangjie code string (not in our subset of codes) is undefined behavior when used as input.
• If multiple characters match a Cangjie code string, you can choose to output both, or choose one. If you choose one, it must only output that character when given that code.
• This is , so shortest code wins!

## Examples

Input - Output (notes)
JWJ - 車 (connected, top to bottom: 十田十)
YRHHI - 謝 (3 parts: first is disconnected, take first and last YR;
second is is disconnected, take first and last HH; last part take last I)
AN - 門 (special case: fixed decomposition)
OMN - 气 (another fixed decomposition; using version 5)
A - 日
BOB - 肭
JPHI - 蜜
GUMPC - 顤
STKR - 匿 or 𡲢 (if multiple characters exist for that code, pick one deterministically)
HXH - (undefined behavior, since X is not in the set of codes above)


## Meta

• Is it clear? Anything that needs adding/removing?
• Any weird test cases I didn't put in?
• Anything else?
• It's not clear enough how to actually do the conversion (without looking at the Wikipedia article). Remember to always assume no pre-existing subject knowledge when writing challenges, and don't require users to use external resources to find out about it. Apr 7 '21 at 17:20

# Text in aLtErNaTiNg cApS

Sometimes, we want to convey sarcasm in a text message or in a YouTube/Reddit comment. To this end, "alternating caps" is often used. Your task, should you wish to accept it, is to write code that turns the input text into its "alternating caps" version.

(This is a deleted rule. You should ignore this for the challenge) For most sans-serif web fonts, it is hard to distinguish capital I (for India) and lower-case l (for Lima). So we want to avoid either of these letters in our output. To achieve this, we are allowed to sacrifice "exact alternating-ness" of the output. Details below.

## Input:

1. A string of words involving [a-zA-Z], with one space in between each word.
2. You may not assume whether or not the string ends with a space/newline/etc.

## Output:

1. The input, turned into "alternating caps form", with the first letter of each word being lower-case.
2. (Deleted; you should not implement it. I have included it just to illustrate my thought process) You may not output any capital I (I, for India) or lower-case l (l, for Lima). To avoid these, you may continue outputting the same letter-case as the previous letter, but you must switch the letter-case at the earliest possible instance. (note to self: this requirement means there are sometimes more than two letters of the same case, which I don't really want)

3. Non-suppressible output can be ignored.

## Rules:

1. Standard loopholes are forbidden.
2. You must take input from and output to natural places, according to your language.
3. This is code-golf, so the lowest byte-count wins. Ties are broken by earliest submission.
5. An ungolfed version and an explanation for your code is appreciated, although not required for the challenge.

# Examples

Input -> Output
---------------
alternating -> aLtErNaTiNg
lower case letters -> lOwEr cAsE lEtTeRs


Examples that follow the deleted rule (which you should not implement -- these are just for your interest:

I used dcode to find some of these examples. holding -> hOLdiNg radii -> rAdii (has more than 2 lower-cases in a row, if using my rules) fall -> fALL (has more than 2 capitals in a row, if using my rules) volleyball -> [even if you are allowed to change the previous letter-cases to try to stop 'ALL' (3 capitals in a row) from appearing, there is a non-unique way of doing so]

Good luck!

• Unfortunately this has been posted before: codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/122783 Apr 8 '21 at 8:36
• @pxeger That challenge is slightly different, as this one asks for alternating characters rather than alternating letters. lower case letters in that challenge would become LoWeR cAsE lEtTeRs (or lOwEr CaSe LeTtErS), neither of which are acceptable outputs for this Apr 11 '21 at 14:02

Take two registers, zero-extend one to another one on x64 in a single instruction.

Here, registers are r0-r15(64-bit), r0d-r15d(32-bit), r0w-r15w(16-bit) and r0b-r15b(8-bit), where regs marking same number share same lowest part. In case there's no solution (e.g. writing into r0d, which the opcode would behave writing to r0), output something obviously not an opcode.

Opcodes:

90              do nothing
89 11sssddd     move 16/32/64-bit[1] from sss[2] to ddd[2]
88 11sssddd     move 8-bit from sss[2] to ddd[2]
0F B7 11dddsss  move from 16-bit sss[2] to 32/64-bit[1] ddd[2]
0F B6 11dddsss  move from 8-bit sss[2] to 16/32/64-bit[1] ddd[2]
101101dd 00     move from 8-bit 0dd[2] to 16-bit 0dd[2]
[WIP]


Shortest code win. -35 Bytes if you support ax cx dx bx sp bi sp di aliasing r0w-r7w, and rax-rdi as r0-r7, eax-edi as r0d-r7d; - another 35 Bytes if you support al cl dl bl aliasing r0b-r3b and ah ch dh bh as theoretically r4b-r7b but without REXs.

# Make an image with the pixels from another (WIP)

Given a target image and a source image, output an image that resembles the target image by rearranging the pixels of the source image.

You will be scored based on speed and accuracy.

$$score = {similarity(Image_{target}, Image_{result}) \times {time_{reference} \over time_{program}}}$$

Higher scores are better

On a 150x150 area, each cell have 15% probable of being a mine. Opening a safe(non-mine) cell tells you amount of mines with <1.5 distance. Opening a mine makes you fail. Find most safe cells in 5 second.

• This isn't very well specified. How will the grid be given, and will it be given via interactive I/O or do we need to provide a function that will be called multiple times? How will this be timed? Will testing be done via a fixed sample? Also, I am pretty sure that any reasonable implementation (doesn't even need extreme optimizations) will be able to clear an entire 150x150 board in well under 5 seconds.
– hyper-neutrino Mod
Apr 10 '21 at 17:22
• @hyper-neutrino What about 1500x1500? Giving grid method quite flexible
– l4m2
Apr 10 '21 at 18:13

# Packing numbers to interval

Interval notation is a way to write complicated range bounds more conveniently and concisely than writing an inequality.

Like a list 1, 2, 3, 4 can be written like [1,4].

There have been already challenges on interpreting interval notations to number ranges, but now we will do the reverse.

Some examples (test cases):

• Input will be a list of numbers (can be positive, negative, 0, but not fractions)

• Input list can be unsorted

• If there is gap between the numbers (I mean in a list like 1,2,5,6, 3,4 is missing), you have to write multiple intervals seperate by Union sign (U)

• There will be no leading 0s in input numbers

• If there is only one number seperate in an interval (I mean like 2 in the list of 2,5,6,7) then make a seperate interval (for the example [2]U[5,7]

• The intervals should go from smallest to largest (for example 1 2 5 6, [1,2]U[5,6] is valid but [5,6]U[1,2] not.

• Input numbers can be separated by anything, it is up to you.

1 2 3 4 -> [1,4]
5 3 4 1 2 -> [1,5]
2 1 6 5 -> [1,2]U[5,6]
6 7 9 8 -4 -2 -3 0 2 1 -> [-2,-4]U[-0,2]U[6,9]


Standard loopholes apply, shortest code wins.

• Could this be a duplicate of this?
– Leo
Apr 12 '21 at 3:47
• @Leo hmmm... i think its really a duplicate Apr 12 '21 at 3:56

# Two player tic-tac-toe game

Create a Tic-Tac-Toe game that allows two human players to play against each other.

• The drawn board can be either in ASCII or graphical (You can use 1-9 digits as a place holder in tic tac toe board)
• Program should randomly choose whose turn is first and randomly give two players X or O
• let both users know whose turn it is amd prompt for input
• Check for winning, and when one player is won, let them both know about win (same for draw game)
• Enforce all tic-tac-toe rules

Standard loopholes apply, shortest code wins

# Hamming Distance Lookup Extravaganza

Note: I was originally just going to post this, but I was having trouble coming up with a good scoring strategy. I'd like to make sure that the instructions are clear and scoring strategy is fair and works. Thanks!

Note: This question is a WIP, and some parts may be incomplete or in the middle of editing!

## Story

Bitty Benny runs a clothing factory, where, among other things, he produces bundles of shirts. Each shirt has a tag (don't worry, it's not itchy) describing what type of shirt it is.

Similar shirts have similar tags, and Bitty Benny wants to create an organization system, that, given a tag, will fetch the shirt with the most similar tag. Each tag is the same length, and lists a series of ones and zeros. To compare how similar tags are, Bitty Benny bought a Hamming Shirt Comparator (Mark II). Here's a loose schematic as to how the comparator works:

1. First, the Comparator takes the two tags and lays them side by side, like so:
+----------+
| 10010100 |
+----------+
| 00101101 |
+----------+

2. Then, the comparator goes through each pair of numbers and counts the number of differences:
+----------+
| 10000100 |
+-|---|--|-+
| 00001101 |
+-|---|--|-+
x   x  x : 3 differences

3. The comparator then laser-engraves the difference onto a marble stone tablet. Some argue that the Mark I was better, because it printed out results instead, but Bitty Benny likes the satisfying thunk of the tablet as it falls from the machine.

The lower the number the comparator outputs, the more similar the shirts are. A perfect match has a score of 0, an imperfect one has a score of the length of the tag.

Bitty Benny has a lot of impatient (but well-paying) clients who demand specific types of shirts. How can Bitty Benny organize and search through the shirts to find the closest-matching tag as quickly as possible?

## Formal Definition

A tag is a bit-vector of size N, where N is a power of two. For this particular challenge we'll assume N to be 64.

Hint: On modern CPU architectures, a tag can be represented by a word (an unsigned 64-bit integer), and the difference between two tags can be written as an xor then a popcount (count the number of ones in the binary representation of the integer). This distance is generally referred to as the hamming Distance (lowercase 'h', of course) between two words.

Naïvely, using a linear search, finding a tag will take O(n) time. Faster solutions exist - can you find them?

### Input

Your program will take two inputs:

1. A list of random tags.
2. a different list of target tags.

These lists may be of different sizes. The input format will be as follows:

<Size of random tags list>
<tag as a decimal number 0 <= n < 2^64>
...
<Size of random target tags list>
<tag as a decimal number>
...



The competition input has been generated, and can be found here.

For each target tag, determine the closest match in the random tag list, using hamming Distance as described above.

In the case of a tie, i.e. multiple tags have the same minimum distance, any one is valid.

### Output

In the order of reading, print out the closest match of each tag as a number, in the appropriate base.

## Scoring and Rules

The goals of this competition are to find solutions that are:

1. Fast, in terms of execution time.
2. Clever, in terms of algorithm used, amortized cost, and write-up.

Note: I have to finish writing example baseline program Note: I have to generate and upload the testing list. Ideally it should be big enough that the naive solution takes around 3 seconds on a modern computer.

1. Translate this naïve idiomatic program from Rust to your language of choice.
2. Time the naïve solution in your language of choice.
3. Write an optimized solution in the same language, and time it using the same technique.
4. Your score is the optimized execution time, in seconds + that times the speedup, lower scores are better:
score = fast_time +  ((fast_time ** 2) / slow_time)


Time your programs using time, include the time taken for I/O.

Note: This scoring method is good for two reasons:

1. In the case that there is no speedup compared to the baseline, the score is just 2x the time.
2. Any speedups over the base version will decrease the score, but the score will never be less than the wall-clock time it takes.

To determine the answer with the best writeup, we'll also be running a popularity contest.

## Entry Template

I'm no stickler, but here's a loose entry template if you'd like to keep things consistent:

## <Language> <Speed Score> (<Calculation>)

<Optimized entry>


## How it works
<breakdown of the code>
<and the method used>
<and any other interesting notes>


Good luck, and happy tagging! Bitty Benny awaits your entry!

# Participant number

A math Olympiad will be held, and participants are being registered. The highest number of participants is 100. Each participant is given an ID number. It is given in a sequence like $$\100, 97, 94, 91, 88, ...., 1\$$, and when the first sequence is over, then $$\99, 96, 93, 90, 87, ...., 3\$$ sequence and so on.

Let's assume one of the participant's ID number is $$\k\$$ and he/she is the $$\n^{th}\$$ participant. Given the value of $$\k\$$, return the value of $$\n\$$.

Test Cases

59 -> 81
89 -> 71
16 -> 29
26 -> 92
63 -> 47
26 -> 92
45 -> 53
91 -> 4
18 -> 62
19 -> 28


There will be no leading zero in input. Standard loopholes apply, shortest code wins. In output there can be trailing whitespace.

• – tsh
Apr 13 '21 at 8:23

Given a table(2D array of strings), arrange width of each column to shorten total width, such that containment in each cell can be fully shown with a space after it, being allowed to occupy next several cells if they are empty. In another word, for each column provide a width $$\W_j\$$, making $$\\sum_jW_j\$$ smallest, and for each non-empty cell in column $$\i\$$ , if there're $$\k\$$ empty cells on adjacent right, then its length is smaller than $$\\sum_{j=i}^{i+k}W_j\$$.

Samples:

"1234", ""  => [2,3] "1234
"a"   , "b"           a b  "

"Date"  , ""  , "Sum"            "Date   Sum
"Mar"   , "1" , "220"             Mar 1  220
"Mar"   , "15", "130" => [4,3,4]  Mar 15 130
"Apr"   , "3" , "100"             Apr 3  100
"Sum_Up", ""  , "450"             Sum_Up 450 "

"aaa" ""    ""               "aaa
""    "bbb" ""    => [0,0,4]  bbb
""    ""    "ccc"             ccc"


Given a string s, find a string t, containing only printable ASCII characters (32-126), such that PPCG53675(t)=s. You can assume such string exist.

Examples:

• tmop => test (and 23 other possible outputs)
• TEST => T5oV (and 23 other possible outputs)
• !!!! => !!!! (and 17)
• !!  => !  (only one solution)
• ~}}~ => ~|~~ (only one solution)
• @RedwolfPrograms How? ac is not a valid output for ac
– l4m2
Apr 13 '21 at 18:35
• Oh, didn't notice that it can be multiple characters. Apr 13 '21 at 18:38
• It might be harder than it sounds (at least to solve efficiently), as there are edge cases involving values close to 32 and 126. Looks like a good challenge, though it needs some good test cases. Also needs a self-contained description. Apr 15 '21 at 9:11