# 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 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".

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# Slice the source code - Cops and Robbers

• Try to clarify the robbers challenge and add a example Jan 27 at 16:07
• Challenges should be self contained: i.e. copy the relevant info from the link onto the question Jan 27 at 16:11
• @Fmbalbuena Added a example. Jan 28 at 15:13
• not bad although i never understand cops and robbers challenge +1 Jan 31 at 5:34
• Really love it. Can't wait for it to be posted! Jan 31 at 12:45
• @DLosc done.... Feb 9 at 18:54
• It would also be good to add examples for negative indices and a negative step value. If people haven't seen Python-style slicing before, they might be very confused about why [::-1] is "reverse the code." Feb 9 at 20:04

# Make me a k-NN classifier

The "machine-learning" tag will be created

The k Nearest Neighbors (k-NN) classifier is a simple machine learning classifier. Although k-NN also works for regression tasks, we will be focusing on classification tasks for this challenge.

The classifier can be customized in a number of different ways. For this challenge, the following can be customized:

• k itself;
• the distance metric; and
• the aggregation function.

## Main idea

As you can probably tell by its name, k-NN works using the concept of neighbors. First, we "train" classifiers by giving it (preferably a lot of) training data.

A training data point consists of two parts: its "features" and its target value. For instance, if predicting car brand, features might be maximum speed, size etc, and the target variable would be brand. We can also specify k, a distance metric, and/or an aggregation function, or let the classifier fine-tune these hyperparameters itself. For this challenge, the above hyperparameters will be given directly to the classifier.

When we give the classifier a list of features to be assigned a predicted target value, it takes the k train points closest to the test point, measured by distance metric via features, and runs their target values through its aggregation function to obtain its prediction.

The hyperparameters are explained below:

## k

k is the neighbor count. If k is 5, for instance, the classifier will consider 5 neighbors when predicting.

## Distance metric

The distance metric measures how far two data points are from each other, measured by their features. A standard distance metric is Euclidean distance, but many others can be used, such as the Manhattan distance.

## Aggregation function

Once the classifier has found the k nearest neighbors, it calls its aggregation function using the target values of these neighbors. A standard aggregation function for classification is majority vote, but many others can be used.

## Challenge

The following are to be taken as input:

• a list of train data points where each data point consists of:
• a list of numbers, where the lengths of these lists are the same for all training data points; and
• a target value;
• k;
• a distance metric which takes two data points' features and outputs a positive number; and
• an aggregation function which takes k data points' target values and outputs a value that is one of the target values contained within the training data (this means that you can't just output some arbitrary number; it must be a target value for at least one of the train data points);

You may also take in the following:

• a list of features of the same length as every list of features within the training data.

Output:

• if an additional list of features was given, the prediction, found using the procedure described above, for that list of features;
• if no such list was given, a function that takes in a list of features as described above and outputs the prediction for that list of features.

Input is flexible so long as it is within reason.

The distance metric and aggregation function are black-box functions.

This challenge is , so the shortest code, measured in bytes, wins.

## Test case

Given in python.

k = 5
distance = lambda a, b: sum((b[i] - a[i]) ** 2 for i in range(5)) # Euclidean distance
aggregation = lambda a, b, c, d, e: max([a, b, c, d, e], key=lambda i: [a, b, c, d, e].count(i)) # output the one with the most occurrences
train = [
[[1, 2, 3, 4, 5], 0],
[[2, 3, 4, 5, 6], 1],
[[3, 4, 5, 6, 7], 1],
[[1, 4, 5, 6, 7], 0],
[[1, 8, 9, 9, 9], 0],
[[9, 0, 0, 0, 0], 1],
[[2, 3, 4, 1, 1], 1]
]

classifier_func = knn_classifier(train, k, distance, aggregation) # function output

print(classifier_func([1, 0, 0, 0, 0])) # outputs 1


Do we have any feedback? Duplicate? Clarification needed? Wrong terminology? Wrong test case?

• Maybe you should include algorithm the knn classifier used. And how should answers handle random numbers if any randomness is involved in the algorithm.
– tsh
Feb 20 at 12:37
• @tsh The functions given as input are black-box functions. And I'm not sure what you mean by "including the algorithm the knn classifier used". You mean add the code for the classifier? Feb 20 at 14:36

# Golf the prime numbers in Shue

• how are you this smart to create such a challenge? Feb 15 at 2:45
• I'm not sure I entirely understand the language. What does b!c mean? What is =| (without anything before it on a line)? Feb 15 at 8:33
• @ophact so the only characters with special meaning are =, \  and the newline. b!c is just a string like any other. I could have used T instead of !, it's just an arbitrary character that is used as a separator. =| means that you can replace the empty string with |, meaning that for example, if we had the string Hello, we could transform it to H|ello or |Hello| or |H|e|l|l||||||||||o| and so on. Feb 15 at 10:01
• @l4m2 If you mean a character or string that matches the beginning of the string, the answer is no. Feb 15 at 15:29
• Output mean it need whole match?
– l4m2
Feb 15 at 15:44
• @l4m2 Yes, otherwise it wouldn't be turing complete. Feb 15 at 15:45
• Why not ab => a|b => | => L| => no?
– l4m2
Feb 15 at 15:49
• but ab match "a"*x+"b"*x
– l4m2
Feb 15 at 15:52
• @l4m2 Yes, that's right, I'll fix it Feb 15 at 15:52

# Golf the colors of a rug

## Background

The challenge is based on this rug:

Its colors seem very regular, but the pattern isn't obvious. However, it becomes visible when we move vertical stripes of the rug up and down:

All stripes are colored in the same way, but each stripe is offset by some height, except for a few irregularities. Also, the stripes have different widths.

First, we need to list all colors:

0: blue-ish white
1: lighter blue
2: darker blue
3: darkest blue
4: green-ish white (the color between the middle orange rows)
5: middle green
6: dark green
7: orange
8: light red
9: dark red


Now, we can lay a grid of cells of equal color over this image. I found that using a cell size of 73.5x129 pixels seems to be a good compromise between precision and compactness. This results in a 42x32 grid, which looks like this when overlayed over the rug:

Correcting for some perspective errors, we now can approximate the colors of this rug like this:

The color scheme shared by all stripes consists, from top to bottom, of these 42 colors: [3, 3, 2, 3, 3, 2, 2, 0, 2, 2, 1, 1, 3, 1, 1, 5, 5, 6, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 6, 6, 7, 7, 4, 7, 7, 8, 8, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9]. (This already contains the information that some rows have different heights, by having multiple entries of the same color in a row.)

There are 18 stripes with widthes [2, 3, 3, 3, 1, 1, 4, 2, 1, 6, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 2, 3]. Their vertical offsets are [3, 4, 3, 4, 2, 0, 2, 4, 7, 9, 10, 9, 5, 3, 5, 3, 4, 5], which means the first stripe starts at the color at index 3 in the common scheme, the second stripe at index 4 and so on. Starting from the respective start index, the next 32 colors are used; remaining colors (if any) are unused.

There are some irregularities in the rug. I didn't find a better way of expressing them except for listing their X and Y coordinates in the grid together with their colors:

X     [8,  9, 10, 19, 19, 12,  0,  1,  2,  3,  4,  2,  3,  4,  2,  3,  4,  5, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 34]
Y     [18, 18, 18, 23, 24, 27, 31, 31, 29, 29, 29, 30, 30, 30, 31, 31, 31, 31, 31, 31, 31, 31, 31, 31, 31]
Color [5,  5,  5,  0,  0,  8,  9,  9,  9,  9,  9,  9,  9,  9,  8,  8,  8,  9,  9,  9,  9,  9,  8,  8,  9]


They are included in this challenge to better reflect the rug and to increase difficulty a bit.

## Challenge

Output this 42x32 grid of numbers from 0-9, each corresponding to the color of one cell of the rug:

333333333332322223302222221222332233333222
332223332223333332221111111122332233322222
222222222223233332221111113100220022222000
220002220002322220013333331322222222200222
002220002222322222211111111122002200022222
222222222220200002231111115111221122222111
221112221112222221115555555511221122211111
111111111112022221115555556533113311111333
113331113331211113356666665611111111133111
331113331111211111155555555511331133311111
111111111113133331165555556555115511111555
115551115551111115556666666655115511155555
555555555551311115556666667666556655555666
556665556665155556667777776755555555566555
665556665555155555566666666655665566655555
555555555556566665576666667666556655555666
556665556665555556667777777766556655566666
666666666665655556667777774777667766666777
667776665556566667774444447466666666677666
776667776666566666677777777766776677766666
666666666667677776647777778777667766666777
667776667776666667778888888877667766677777
777777777776766667778888887844774477777444
774447774447677774407777778777777777744777
447774447777677777708888888877447744477777
777777777774744447778888889888778877777888
778887778887777778889999999988778877788888
888888888887877778889999998977887788888777
887778887778788887798888889888888888877888
779997778888788888899999999988778877788888
889998888887877778889999999999889988888999
998889889998899998899999999999889998899999


## Rules

• The program should not take input.
• Formatting doesn't matter.
• This is , so shortest answer (in bytes) wins.

## Sandbox Questions

• Why doesn't the box with irregularities align?
• Would the challenge be more fun with or without having to include irregularities? I guess allowing both variants is not a good idea because solutions aren't comparable anymore.

# Smallest maximal rectangle in a skyline

• u can say that this is like version 2 of the previous challenge u posted similar to this Feb 17 at 10:32
• I really like this Feb 17 at 11:12

# Golfing Coins

The challenge is to write a program that begins with a board like this:

O O X
O O X
O O X


The O's are coins. X's are empty.

## Rules

• Move the coins into random empty places in the board
• The coins can only move up, down, left or right 1 spot.
• Coins cannot move outside the board
• Coins cannot move in a spot with a coin already
• Every time a coin moves, count that as a move, and print the board like this:
X X X
X X X
X X X


and the X's that hold a coin should be replaced with O's.

This process should be repeated until every coin has moved into each spot on the board, on which you should print the following string:

"All coins have moved into all spots during this process in (moves) moves" replace moves with the number of successful coin moves.

## Scoring

For every answer in the same programming language, it will be ordered in the number of bytes. The one whose answer has the least amount of bytes will get (the number of answers in the same programming language) points. Example:

Person 1 (Python) = 10 bytes
Person 2 (Python) = 12 bytes Person 3 (Java) = 20 bytes Person 4 (C) = 80 bytes

Then, Person 1 gets 2 points and Person 2 gets 1 point. Persons 3 & 4 get 1 point each. Points will be posted in the comments of the answer.

# Disassemble tables

Posted here.

• awesome puzzle ophact! at the moment, i do not have any feedback other than well done! Feb 16 at 10:40
• #4 seems to have an extra pair of legs Feb 19 at 0:47
• @emanresuA thanks, will edit now Feb 19 at 7:51

# Lexicographical sum

• Bigger test cases would be helpful. Mar 2 at 8:39
• how big @ophact? Mar 2 at 23:47
• Something like 386 would be great Mar 3 at 12:45
• Isn't it called Lexicographical instead of Lexical? Either way, not sure why it got so many downvotes, unless it was for a previous versions that were already corrected, or it could use a short explanation of Lexicographical order in general. You may also want to write out the n=9 example a bit more perhaps. E.g. "For sum n=9 the following strictly decreasing arrays are possible: [[9],[8,1],[7,2],[6,3],[5,4],[6,2,1],[5,3,1],[4,3,2]]. Putting these in lexicographical order: [[4,3,2],[5,3,1],[5,4],[6,2,1],[6,3],[7,2],[8,1],[9]], the first [4,3,2] will be the final output." Mar 3 at 13:17
• I think you should clarify more explicitly that the array is strictly decreasing and therefore cannot contain duplicate elements. At first it wasn't obvious to me why the output isn't always just [1, 1, 1, 1, ...] Mar 3 at 14:54
• sry @KevinCruijssen and pxeger i did not have time to check ur msgs yet as i was sleeping thx for the feedback! i will change the challenge accordingly Mar 3 at 23:27

# Random Point from a 2D Donut Distribution

Posted here.

• I don't think the current definition of the distribution is unambiguous? Is this intentional? Is this open-ended-function or did you mean to specify an exact distribution?
– Wheat Wizard Mod
Feb 17 at 10:39
• @Jitse Different distributions can have the same standard deviation. Perhaps you forgot to specify that the radius of the points should have a normal distribution? Feb 17 at 20:52
• @AnttiP You're absolutely right, can't believe I missed that! Feb 18 at 10:37
• So what we need is just generate $R \sim {\mathcal {N}}(r ,s^2)$, $\theta \sim U[0, 2\pi]$. And convert to Cartesian coordinate system $(R\cos \theta, R\sin \theta)$?
– tsh
Feb 19 at 6:03
• @tsh $$R \sim {\mathcal {N}}(r ,s)$$, but yes Feb 19 at 22:35

# String table

### Posted here

• Mar 10 at 13:48
• please leave stuff in the sandbox for more than two hours. Mar 10 at 18:26

# Implement a very simple ALU using only NAND gates

• O0-O7? Isn't it O0-O3? Mar 13 at 16:58
• Oh, yes. My mistake: a previous revision of the challenge had a data width of 8 bits. I will correct that. Mar 13 at 17:10

# Is it a base-$$\\infty\$$ prime?

To explain how base-$$\\infty\$$ numbers work, let's look at how base 10 arithmetic works. We can view a base 10 number as a list of digits (numbers). So 123 is [1,2,3] and so on. When we add numbers, we use the standard long addition, meaning we add digit by digit, carrying if necessary. For example, 123+798:

  ₁₁
123
+ 798
-----
921


Similarly, multiplication can be done using long multiplication. For example, 123*798:

    123
*   798
-------
984
1107
+ 861
-------
98154


Now, like the name suggest, base-$$\\infty\$$ numbers have infinitely many possible digits. Therefore we can represent a base-$$\\infty\$$ number as a list of integers. For lists consisting of only non-negative numbers, addition and multiplication are straightforward. For example, [19,53,1]+[8,4]=[19,53,1]+[0,8,4]=[19,61,5] and [1,2]*[3,4]=[1,2]*[3,0]+[1,2]*[4]=[3,6,0]+[4,8]=[3,10,8]. When restricted to non-negative numbers, carrying doesn't occur.

Negative numbers however spice things up. Let's look first how [-1] works. Let's see what happens when we add [1] to it:

[-1]+[1]=[1,0]

We get [1,0]. Before explaining how this works, it may be helpful to look at a related example in base-10:

9 + 1 = 10

Do you see the similarities? Nine is just ten minus one. Anyways, what is happening is that when you cross the boundary from the negatives to the positives, you carry one, so you end up with [1,0] where the one is carried.

Let's see what happens when we add [-1] to [-1]. We can reason in this way:

[-1]+[-1]=[-1]+[1]+[-2]=[1,0]+[-2]=[1,-2]

Here is the related base-10 example:

9 + 9 = 18

Ok, here is a more complicated example

[1,3,-2,-3,6]+[1,5,-1]=[1,4,0,3,5]

And the base-10 equivalent

13876+159=14035

For singular non-negative integers, multiplication works as you'd expect:

[3]*[1,-2,3]=[1,-2,3]+[1,-2,3]+[1,-2,3]=[5,-6,9]

For singular negative integers, we can use the following trick:

[-3]*[1,-2,3]=([1,0] - [3])*[1,-2,3]=[1,0]*[1,-2,3]-[3]*[1,-2,3]=[1,-2,3,0]-[5,-6,9]=[1,-8,9,-9]

where a-b=c iff b+c=a (subtraction is well defined as long as a>=b).

Here is a base-10 example:

[-1]*[-1]=[-2,1] 9*9=81

For multiplying with longer numbers, we just distribute the addition:

[a,b,c]*[d,e,f]=[a,0,0]*[d,e,f]+[b,0]*[d,e,f]+[c]*[d,e,f]=[a]*[d,e,f,0,0]+[b]*[d,e,f,0]+[c]*[d,e,f]

Basically just doing long multiplication.

# Primes

A prime number is a number which cannot be expressed as a non-trivial product. A non-trivial product is a product which doesn't contain the multiplicative identity ([1]). By convention, the multiplicative identity is not a prime.

Your task is to take a base-$$\\infty\$$ number as input and decide if it's a prime.

# Rules

Standard rules apply. You may assume that the input doesn't contain leading zeros. You may choose whether the additive identity (zero) is represented as [] or [0].

# Mathematical definition of addition and multiplication

[] + b = b
a + [] = a
[...ia,la] + [...ib,lb] = [...(ia + ib + carry(la, lb)), la+lb]


where

carry(a,b) = [(a < 0 and b < 0) or (a + b >= 0 and min(a,b) != 0]


Multiplication:

[] * b = []
[..ia, 0] * b = [...(ia*b),0]
[..ia,-a] * b = [...(ia + [1]), 0]*b - [a]*b
[..ia, a + 1] * b = [..ia, a]*b + b


Where a-b is the unique solution to b+x=a (guaranteed to be well defined when using the above definitions)

# Test cases:

[0] -> False
[1] -> False
[2] -> True
[3] -> True
[4] -> False
[5] -> True
[6] -> False
[7] -> True
[8] -> False
[9] -> False
[10] -> False
[11] -> True
[12] -> False
[-12] -> True
[-11] -> True
[-10] -> True
[-9] -> True
[-8] -> True
[-7] -> True
[-6] -> True
[-5] -> True
[-4] -> True
[-3] -> True
[-2] -> True
[-1] -> True
[1,0] -> True
[1,1] -> True
[1,2] -> True
[1,3] -> True
[1,4] -> True
[1,-4] -> False
[1,-3] -> True
[1,-2] -> False
[1,-1] -> True

• Isn't this just the set of integer polynomials with nonnegative leading coefficient in disguise? Mar 20 at 16:34
• @Nitrodon Yes, it is Mar 20 at 17:46
• how are your challenges so good? +1 for nice challenge! Mar 21 at 0:36
• This looks good as it is; it doesn't need to be made harder. However, you can always make it harder. So, if you want to make it harder, go ahead! The more challenging the challenge, the more enjoyable it is (at least, until it becomes impossible)! Mar 22 at 19:24
• Ah ok thx @SylvesterKruin ig ill leave it as it is, i dont want to overcomplicate Mar 22 at 23:19

# Flipping Burnt Pancakes, but Optimally!

This is based on the Burnt Pancake problem.

In the burnt pancake problem, each “pancake” has a burnt side. You must sort these pancakes in order with the burnt side down. You may only use one tool, your spatula, which can flip the pancakes from the top of the pancake stack to where you inserted the spatula.

Flipping pancakes that have the burnt side down results in those pancakes being in reverse order and having the burnt side up, and vice versa.

For a given pancake stack, return the minimal number of flips needed to be made burnt pancake sorting.

The output must show every step of the optimal flipping process, with the position of the spatula being represented by a pipe character, and u or b after every number representing whether or not a pancake is burnt or unburnt.

Note that this is an NP-HARD problem. You may not make an approximation algorithm.

# Testcases

1b2b3b4u returns the following:
1b|2b3b4u
1u2b|3b4u
2u|1b3b4u
2b1b|3b4u
1u2u3b|4u
3u|2b1b4u
3b2b1b|4u
1u2u3u4u
4b3b2b1b returns the following:
4b3b2b1b|
1u2u3u4u


This is fastest-algorithm, so the minimal time complexity wins.

• 32145 3'2145 1'2'345 21345 2'1345 1'2345 12345 Is [3,2,1,4,5] at most 6?
– l4m2
Feb 26 at 18:28
• Is this a good explanation?
– awi
Feb 28 at 15:50
• @awi Nice, much better! Some images might make it even better. Mar 1 at 8:51
• I found a visualization of the problem at one point, might link that. Could someone confirm what the solutions for the examples are?
– awi
Mar 1 at 15:48
• Found some solutions by brute force. Is this good?
– awi
Mar 23 at 15:13
• – Wheat Wizard Mod
Apr 7 at 11:38

# Convert from Two's Complement to Decimal

• May we assume at most one leading zero? If not, please add a test-case covering this. Mar 17 at 19:56
• I was assuming not, so I will add a test case. Mar 17 at 20:42
• Are we allowed to copy the example answer XD Mar 19 at 1:21
• Well, if there are no better solutions in Mathematica, it could become a community wiki solution, and the approach could certainly be adapted to another language. Mar 21 at 18:20

# Draw an ASCII envelope

• Wow your're a good challenge poster. nice challenge! Mar 22 at 23:31
• But i think you can remove the last 2 points under rules as they are sort of standard code golf rules and ascii art rules, and u might wanna include "trailing spaces are allowed" Mar 22 at 23:32
• @DialFrost Thanks for the feedback! I'll edit it according to your suggestions! Mar 22 at 23:46

# Order of an algebraic number

• i find it fascinating although its a bit beyond my knowledge of how to solve it Dec 21, 2021 at 7:41
• Of course this is your challenge, and you can configure it as you wish. But I'd like to note that, by separating out any answers that employ Built-Ins into a Community Answer, you're effectively reducing this to a "Do X without Y" challenge, where "Y", in this case, is Built-Ins. That takes away the fun of being able to find just the right Built-In (or combination of two or three Built-Ins) to do the job... Dec 24, 2021 at 4:11
• ...fun that you were happy to avail yourself of when you answered each of these two questions with a pair of Built-Ins: codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/224125/… and codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/229414/… Dec 24, 2021 at 4:12
• Sorry I did not spot this problem when the challenge was still in sandbox: Surd in Mathematica only gives real roots. Dec 24, 2021 at 4:44
• Deleted main post Dec 24, 2021 at 16:25
• @alephalpha I've edited the challenge to include the test cases suggested by you and tsh on the main post. I've also specified that the input will always be real Dec 24, 2021 at 16:26
• @theorist I already know that Mathematica essentially has a builtin for this - it wouldn't surprise me if other math-oriented langs (e.g. Pari/GP) also did. I'm not interested in solutions that off-hand all the work onto a builtin, but banning them isn't something I like doing. Therefore, I go by this suggestion to combine trivial builtin answers into a single CW answer. I'm well aware that I've posted builtin-only answers before, but only if the challenge doesn't combine trivial answers into a single CW answer (like I prefer to do) Dec 24, 2021 at 16:31
• There's three problems: (1) For all intents and purposes, the suggestion you are folowing does effectively ban builtins. By requiring any who answer to put builtin solutions into an anonymous community wiki, you are banning them from including builtins in their answers. The practice you've adoped just seems like a way to ban builtins in practice, while saying they're not "technically" banned. It's a "distinction without a difference." Thus I think those who adopt this practice shouldn't say "I'm not banning builtins".... Dec 24, 2021 at 22:08
• Instead, I think it's more accurate to say: "I am banning builtins. But for those who want to post builtins anyways, you can put them into the Community Wiki." (2) Calling builtin answers "trivial", IMO, unfairly, well, trivializes the knowledge and understanding of a program needed to identify the right builtin for the job. Sure some can be trivial, but I don't think think they should be blanket-labeled as suchl. E.g., while you may have a different view, I don't think this was trivial: codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/230836/leave-the-times-out/… ... Dec 24, 2021 at 22:10
• The point of the linked example is that Defer wasn't designed to accomplish the goal set by the OP, but it nevertheless had that effect anyways. And you needed some understanding of how the language worked to realize it would do that. But it's still a simple one-word builtin. (3) Unless you're programming in machine code, all answers consist of a sequence of builtins. So it really comes down to an arbitrary cutoff of what's the minimum amount of builtins an answer needs to contain. Dec 25, 2021 at 0:03
• To my understanding, the most complex thing here is not find out a minimal polynomial, but instead of how to simplify the input. Especially for testcases like $\sqrt{\sqrt{5}+1}\cdot \sqrt{\sqrt{5}-1}$, or $\frac{5\sqrt{5}-1}{\sqrt{5}-1}$.
– tsh
Dec 27, 2021 at 6:23

# What's the Missing Code?

• Now this sounds like fun! Just one question: wouldn't it add more to the challenge if you didn't tell the robbers where each letter was removed? I feel like knowing where the missing characters are would make it too easy, especially since the cops are trying to create as short code as possible (so that they win). Do you think it would make it too easy? Mar 27 at 18:13
• I thought about this, but I came to the conclusion that it would make it easier for the robbers to simply go to the start of the program, and write print(...); end program. However, on thinking about it again, this would make it easier for the cops to reduce the characters removed while keeping the answer non-obvious, which would prevent the robbers from doing this. I will consider this and perhaps change the question. Mar 27 at 18:19
• Ohh.... I see what you mean. But that could be part of the cops' challenge: making the code complicated enough, with few enough characters removed, so that the robbers couldn't do that. But yes, your reasoning makes sense now. In that case, either way would be fine. I'm looking forward to when this is posted on the main site! Mar 27 at 18:28
• I think it is too easy for the robbers in its current state, so I will edit it to include your suggestion: I think that as long as the cops remove few enough characters, it will be impossible for the robbers to do this. Mar 27 at 19:17
• If your int("5") example is run in the Python shell (as opposed to in a program), the output is 5. Just FYI. Mar 27 at 19:46

# Wash clothes as quickly as possible

• Can you add test cases? Mar 29 at 15:50

# Give me the electronic configuration.

As simple as the title.

Input will be a number denoting the atomic number.

The output will be the electronic configuration of the element of the given atomic number.

There are 2 rules for electronic configuration:

• The maximum number of electrons each shell can hold is given by $$\2n^2\$$ where n is the shell number starting from 1.
• The number each shell is allowed to hold from the last shell is given by $$\2n^2\$$ where n is the number starting from 2, in reverse.

You must fill each shell to it's limited capacity from left to right, with the remaining electrons on the last shell.

## Test cases

12 -> [2,8,2]
13 -> [2,8,3]
20 -> [2,8,8,2]
86 -> [2,8,18,32,18,8]
29 -> [2,8,18,1]

• You may specify this a little more, as according to current spec any of [2,2,8], [2,8,1,1],[1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1] is a valid answer for 12. Apr 10 at 20:03
• @pajonk i added this line You must fill each shell to it's limited capacity. Apr 11 at 3:23
• 29 should return [2,8,18,1], not [2,8,18,2] Apr 11 at 4:12
• BTW, it's more accurate to call it the electronic shell structure, not the electronic configuration Apr 11 at 4:13
• @Steffan that's how we learnt it Apr 11 at 5:09
• @PyGamer0 You must fill each shell to it's limited capacity from left to right, with the remaining electrons on the last shell, maybe? Remember, you're dealing with programmers here ;-) Apr 11 at 11:14
• @pajonk ok, edited. Apr 11 at 11:29
• If you look up the electronic configuration of atomic number 12, for example, you'll see things like 1s^2 2s^2 2p^6 3s^2 at the top. If you look up electron shells of atomic number 12, it will tell you 2,8,2. Apr 11 at 16:07
• I just noticed this is a duplicate of codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/37657/… Apr 19 at 18:36

# Translate Text into Matoran

The Matoran Alphabet is the alphabet used by many of the characters in the Bionicle universe.

Your challenge is to create a program or function that takes a string as input and creates an image of the input written in the Matoran alphabet.

The input will only consist of uppercase letters (A-Z), numbers (0-9), and spaces. You may instead take input in lowercase.

## Glyphs

As you can probably notice, the alphabet comprises glyphs made up of circles and straight lines.

For the sake of this challenge, let's define each glyph as a circle of radius 4 units (8 x 8), with some internal designs. The internal designs of letters can be any of:

• Vertical Line at position 2, 4, or 6 (either full length or half)
• Horizontal Line equivalent to above
• Circle of radius 1, centered at [2, 2], [2, 6], [6, 2], or [6, 6]
• Any of the above rotated by 45 degrees about the centre

Number glyphs work slightly differently; they always have a circle of radius 1 in the centre. For numbers 0 - 5, the glyph has evenly spaced spokes between the circles, starting from the top. For numbers greater than 5, the glyph has an additional circle of radius 2 in the centre, and the number of spokes is 6 less than the number.

Here is a diagram of the glyphs in spec, any glyphs with 45 degree rotations have an orange grid.

For drawing the glyphs, any line stroke in the range (0, 1) can be used. Glyphs can be kerned (space between adjacent glyphs) any amount from 0 - 4 units. Spaces should be 8 units wide (in addition to kerning).

This is a code-golf challenge, so the shortest code in bytes in each language wins.

• This does seem like pretty interesting challenge, although I would recommend a clearer image of the characters of the Matoran alphabet, and probably a more rigorous definition of the shapes of each of the characters (eg. defining the positions/lengths/radii/etc of the inner circles/lines in terms of the radius of the exterior circle) Apr 11 at 4:14
• @des54321 Thank you! I added some specification around the characters. Do you think this is sufficient, or should I include a written definition of each glyph? Apr 11 at 22:31
• That looks pretty good! I'd suggest leaving this challenge up on the sandbox for a bit longer to see if anyone else has suggestions, but as things stand now this seems a very well specified and fairly interesting challenge Apr 11 at 23:06
• Thanks for your help, I'll leave it a couple of days then post it. Apr 11 at 23:13

# Get the trends of an array

• Is there any specifications prevent the program from outputting [[1,1], [1,2], [2,3]] for [1,1,2,3]? Maybe you should add some texts about "you should generate fewest possible trends" or something like it.
– tsh
Apr 18 at 8:43
• @tsh Good idea. Added. Apr 18 at 9:17

# Will this makina program halt?

makina is a cell-based esolang composed of automata which move around a grid. These automata follow paths of instructions that direct their movement. Your task is to, given a makina program using only the below instructions (so a subset of normal makina) as input, output two distinct values depending on whether or not it is a loop. (If program flow comes to an arrow character that it has already visited then the program is a loop.)

## Instructions

• ^>v< These instructions (arrows) set the direction of the automaton to the direction they point in.
• I This instruction halts automata going up or down, but does nothing to ones going left or right.
• H This instruction halts automata going left or right, but does nothing to ones going up or down.
• O This instruction does nothing to the automaton, acting like a sort of 4-way intersection.

All other characters halt the automaton, as does exiting the bounds of the program. The automaton starts in the top-left corner going right.

## Truthy

>>>v
v<<<

OOOv
H<<<
v


## Falsey

>>>v
^<<<

>v
^O<
>^

>>>v
v<I<
H>^
>^

>>>>v
v <<<

OOOv
H<<<
v

• "All other characters halt the automaton" So arbitrary characters different from >v<^HIO can be part of the input? If so, this should be reflected in the test cases. (Personally, I'd only allow valid characters in the input.) Apr 24 at 19:39
• Also the current last two Falsy test cases actually halt and are probably a cop-paste error from the Truthy cases. Apr 24 at 19:43