Questions tagged [code-golf]

For questions about code golf challenges and/or submissions. DO NOT post code golf challenges themselves as questions here; those belong on the main site or in the Sandbox if you want to get feedback on them.

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Is outputting by modifying an input with no modifying access allowed?

Say Round to nicer numbers where it's possible to always output n'=m. I submitted a Javascript solution that does this. I can require input be f(x,n,[m]) and then ...
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12 votes
3 answers
597 views

What do we rename Advent of Code Golf?

Recently, Seggan received an email from Eric Wastl, the owner of Advent of Code, part of which is quoted below: Please do not call your event something like "Advent of Code Golf"; this ...
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24 votes
28 answers
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Announcing Code Golf Advent Calendar 2022! (+ Event challenge sandbox)

Following last year's event, we're doing Advent of Code Golf Code Golf Advent Calendar 20221! On each day between Dec 1st and Dec 25th (inclusive), a new challenge will be posted at UTC midnight2. It ...
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1 vote
3 answers
54 views

Can Function Objects be Appened to STDIN From the Stack?

This is mostly specific to Vyxal, but I've worded the language so that any hypothetical stack language could utilise this Say you have a stack-based language which supports function objects on the ...
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2 votes
1 answer
82 views

Using compression tools

Are you allowed to use compression tools (e.g. gzip, xz) in your code? For example, a shell script with: cat script.sh.gz|gzcat|sh (25 bytes) where the content of ...
2 votes
2 answers
76 views

Byte counting for BASIC style DATA / READ inputs

Background Many BASIC dialects idiomatically use DATA and READ commands to store and read input data from the source code. We ...
15 votes
0 answers
174 views

Advent of Code Golf 2021 is over! (Stats, Hall of Fame)

Advent of Code Golf 2021 is over! Thanks to everyone who participated in and/or helped me run the Advent of Code Golf 2021 event. It wouldn't have been so successful without the help of the community. ...
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-1 votes
1 answer
169 views

Why are golfing languages allowed?

I'm a bit confused about the use of golfing languages in golfing challenges. In the standard loopholes there is a point about using self-made languages that solve the problem in one symbol. And it's a ...
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27 votes
25 answers
3k views

Announcing Advent of Code Golf 2021! (+ Event challenge sandbox)

Originally from caird coinheringaahing's idea, I thought about how we could do it this year with such a short time before December, and I decided to gather some ideas from previous AoC events. (There'...
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1 vote
0 answers
60 views

What loopholes should be assumed when a name-specific file is used for code golf?

I have posted this golfing tip for Bash before: In Pure Bash (or any other pure shellscript), use . for looping. It's a tip that recomments using a file whose the ...
user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
242 views

Has there been any large-scale attempt to assemble libraries or programs from aggressively-golfed solutions in a given language?

It occurred to me when I was browsing threads here that there is an immense collection of simple and extremely space-efficient functions on this site. Although I imagine the end result of such an ...
-3 votes
1 answer
99 views

What's your favorite code golf video? [closed]

Do you have a favorite code-golf video? Maybe someone golfing before it was cool? Or because it was a way to solve a problem?
4 votes
3 answers
197 views

Online tool to determine number of bytes for UTF-8 characters?

Is there an online tool that will tell me the number of bytes in a UTF-8 character? Or, if not, how do I determine this? I'm currently trying to determine the number of the bytes for the left and ...
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-4 votes
1 answer
147 views

Need help with code golf [duplicate]

What in the world is code golf and how is it important to me? I have already looked in the tour.
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4 votes
1 answer
90 views

Should "import" statement be included in byte count if I'm not using it directly [duplicate]

Related: On scoring imported functions I knew that if I want to use some imported functions, I had to include "import" statement in the byte count. For example, I want to find out the most ...
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1 vote
1 answer
93 views

Is returning a longer array allowed?

There exist some questions that it's easier to output an array longer than intended to output, and it costs to slice. Longer array behave like small ones as long as you don't access its length or out-...
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1 vote
0 answers
67 views

Can we assume computer be fast enough?

Consider such a question Take a program P and an integer n, check whether P halts. You may ...
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1 vote
1 answer
119 views

What to count in assembly?

Yes, I've checked this post (How are bytes counted in assembly), but I'm asking a different question. I'm asking, if I have an .asm file, an ...
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4 votes
0 answers
115 views

How should answers that time out be judged?

Suppose a challenger submits a code-golf challenge to do a particular task, together with test inputs. (That is, they've determined that, in order to be convinced that the code in an answer correctly ...
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6 votes
1 answer
207 views

Byte counting policy for library imports in Factor

As this month's LotM (Forth) was not gaining much participation, I guessed it's partly because it's way too low-level, so I was looking into Factor as a modern, high-level alternative to Forth. If it ...
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9 votes
2 answers
312 views

Omitting trailing closing parentheses in Excel

When golfing in Excel, it is often possible to omit closing parentheses at the end of an expression. Excel will detect this, add the missing closing parentheses and ask if this is what was meant. ...
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0 votes
0 answers
97 views

Are Rubik's Cube fewest move type challenges allowed? [duplicate]

We have atomic-code-golf which lets us have challenges involving things other than byte count. So I wonder if Rubik's Cube fewest move challenge (FMC) type challenges are allowed. I see no objections ...
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0 votes
1 answer
79 views

Do golfing languages support rational number arithmetic?

I proposed this code golf on sandbox: Integer Logarithm Take \$a \in ℤ_{>1}\$ and \$b \in ℤ_+\$ as inputs. Write a function \$f\$ that: $$ f(a,b) = \left\{ \begin{array}{ll} ...
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9 votes
5 answers
821 views

Ruleset for RGS's Golfing Showdown - competition is over!

RGS RGS stands for RGS's Golfing Showdown, a golfing competition. The competition has ended, final leaderboard at the end of this post! 1 - The format The RGS will be a virtual golfing competition ...
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2 votes
0 answers
77 views

Is asking for a bounded time complexity allowed?

Say, if someone asks for a code-golf like this: Test primality under polynomial time Given a positive integer, test whether it is prime. Rules The algorithm must have polynomial time complexity in ...
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2 votes
1 answer
118 views

Are all golfing languages friendly to Unicode?

I'm going to make a challenge involving Mahjong Tiles (U+1F000 – U+1F02F, though I'm going to use only U+1F000 – U+1F021). ...
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7 votes
3 answers
366 views

Can I use here my own language for code-golfing?

Can I golf in my own programming language here? I ask it 'cause there is no online way to check it out.
4 votes
1 answer
295 views

Are transpiler languages allowed?

I recently created a simple little language that transpiles Brainfuck into a format that is half the size of its input. It can be used to compress and decompress Brainfuck programs. Provided I ...
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5 votes
1 answer
591 views

Zsh: Functions and Math functions

I have been using functions for Zsh submissions for some time. I typically submit the body alone, as the body can be run as a full program with no modification: ...
1 vote
1 answer
134 views

Code golf involving GPS?

I planned to ask a code golf involving GPS: What's the current zodiac? Objective: Display the emoji of the zodiac of current time, according to your location. Rules: 1. There's no input....
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-2 votes
2 answers
160 views

Ethics of Golfing in Assembly or other extremely uncommon languages

My understanding of code-golf in general is that you're to provide the shortest solution in a given language. However, for most challenges, you could safely pick a language no one really is familiar ...
2 votes
1 answer
70 views

Is it all right to edit challenge to recognize the winner?

I know that the best answer in a code golf challenge should be the accepted one. Is it a good idea to add a "final positions table" to the end of the post once a winner is found? Something like this: ...
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2 votes
1 answer
152 views

Does [code-golf] count in bytes or character length

In the code-golf challenges, does it count in bytes or character length. Because one character can 1 byte ranging from charcode 0 to 255, 2 bytes ranging from 0 to 65535, etc.
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3 votes
1 answer
120 views

Who wins code golf if there is a tie?

On my code golf challenge, there are two tie 24 Bytes answers. The first one (Excel) is great because of the creativity put into it and the second one (MATL) is just skill I think and each one should ...
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2 votes
1 answer
55 views

Where timing between outputs matters, does the solution need to account for buffering?

In certain languages (i.e. C), writes to streams like stdout can be buffered by default - what this means is that when one calls functions like ...
user avatar
11 votes
3 answers
196 views

Do different ImageMagick tools count as their own languages?

Here is an answer that I made recently: https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/181416/70328 A commenter suggested that I could remove convert from my code, and use <...
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1 vote
0 answers
37 views

Can we pass properties of the input as parameters? [duplicate]

Some challenges require, for instance, lists as input. A list has a property being its size. Several languages have builtins to get properties such as the size for a list (all golfing language, ...
2 votes
1 answer
101 views

Can I repost a challenge with different rules? [duplicate]

Recently, I posted a code-golf question about number sequences. However, as I was looking through the question later, I thought to myself, "Wouldn't this be good as a fastest-algorithm question?" It's ...
4 votes
1 answer
256 views

Does linter golf require a specific interpreter to be a valid answer for golf?

If someone answers a code-golf challenge in, for example, JavaScript, and as an additional challenge restricts to only code that is approved by http://www.jslint.com/ that answer is valid if an ...
1 vote
1 answer
136 views

It seems the consensus on Scratch is to use scratchblocks2 syntax, but what about "when green flag clicked"?

In many code-golf Scratch submissions, I see when green flag clicked used, when when gf clicked is also valid in scratchblocks2. ...
2 votes
1 answer
188 views

Need contributions to my new Programming Language

My name is Eduardo and I'm a Computer Science student from Brazil, finishing college by the end of this year. My undergraduate thesis is about the programming language JAEL that I'm developing for ...
1 vote
2 answers
225 views

Include characters or just bytes?

I'm using javascript as a golfing language. I've just noticed that the number of characters used in a program may differ from the number of bytes that program takes (due to text encoding?). For ...
1 vote
0 answers
71 views

Is a slightly changed compiler allowed? [duplicate]

Some maybe not-intended-to-program languages may have some extra limitations. Is it allowed to change it to solve a problem? If so, how the length go? p.s. marking this topic as duplicate of this ...
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8 votes
1 answer
304 views

What is the consensus on built ins?

Originally on this challenge I banned built in matrix functions but people complained about it. I then removed the ban but there were few interesting answers given and some people complained and said ...
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-2 votes
1 answer
140 views

User disobeying rules?

So last question that I posted. i.e : this, I wanted to ask because a specific new user whom I have warned almost on all answer he has posted (5-6) was not following, yet he keeps answering with ...
2 votes
2 answers
111 views

Interpret BF (question on repost)

Sandbox : link Interpret BrainF**K : This is usually a very common challenge on a lot of sites and on PPCG we also have this Interpret BF. I wanted to know if we could make a repost of that question ...
1 vote
0 answers
59 views

Function not that directly used allowed? [duplicate]

In this answer, the function is defined as With(Math)f=(a,b,c,d)=>... (1) However, f is not used in the function, so it ...
  • 17k
2 votes
2 answers
201 views

Why do Jelly submissions get to ignore the `Y` atom in the byte count?

For those not familiar, Y in Jelly joins a list of strings (actually a list of lists of characters) with a newline. In plenty of challenges with text output, Jelly ...
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2 votes
1 answer
1k views

What is the purpose of "header" and "footer" for C++ submissions using TIO?

What are the rules for using c++ in code golf? In TIO, there is a header section and a footer section. Can you put your #includes in the header section? Do you use this template? ...
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1 vote
1 answer
92 views

Are fixed input allowed if the bytes count? [closed]

E.g. requiring to call by f(4), and add 1 to the byte count Or maybe when inputting a choice, require input f`!#%` or ...
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