The Nineteenth Byte - 2021-01-24

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03:17

0

Q: Solve the case!

Introduction You have a lot of projects, and you've all named them one way: two words. But, unfortunately for you, you sometimes accidentally switch those words around while typing. Thankfully, you've come up with an idea: you can simply just make a program that switches around the words at a key...

string code-challenge parsing natural-language

New Main Posts

03:42

0

Q: What words where?

Introduction You have a lot of projects, and you've all named them one way: two words. But, unfortunately for you, you sometimes accidentally switch those words around while typing. Thankfully, you've come up with an idea: you can simply just make a program that switches around the words in that ...

string code-challenge parsing natural-language

2 hours later…

New Main Posts

05:48

2

Q: 8 out of 10 programmers like countdown

There is a gameshow in the UK called "Countdown", and a funny, if vulgar, parody called "8 out of 10 Cats does Countdown". One of the games in the show is called the "numbers game", and goes something like this: Two, three, four, five, or six "small numbers" are randomly selected. They will all ...

code-golf arithmetic expression-building

Lyxal

06:39

Wow quiet here today

3 hours later…

caird coinheringaahing

09:25

@Lyxal Weekends often are, people have better things to do :P

1 hour later…

Neil

10:41

CMC: Write a function f(a, b) with the following properties: 1) f(a,b)=0 iff a=b 2) f(a,b)=-f(b,a) 3) given an integer a there exists an infinite number of distinct lists b_i such that f(a,b_1)>0, f(b_i, b_i+1)>0 (for 0<i<n) and f(b_n,a)>0

4 hours later…

user

14:31

Nice question! I was thinking about f=b-a before realizing it made a cycle

user

15:09

@Neil How about cos(a/4)-cos(b/4)? Is there any limitation on n?

APL, 9 bytes: -O(2○÷∘4)

Redwolf Programs

Just did my 75th first post review!

caird coinheringaahing

@RedwolfPrograms Nice! Next stop, the Steward badge :P

Redwolf Programs

Should only take me a few more years :p

New Main Posts

15:28

5

Q: Is it a lobster number?

Introduction A "lobster number", by my own designation, is a number that contains within itself all of its prime factors. The "lobster" description was inspired by the recent question "Speed of Lobsters". The basic idea is that each prime factor can be made by lobsters munching away digits of t...

decision-problem number-theory

Newly Featured Questions

15:41

4

Q: Print a specific value in the infinite Walsh matrix

The Walsh matrix is an interesting fractal matrix with the property that every single value in a Walsh matrix has a value of either -1 or 1. Additionally, the size of a Walsh matrix is always a power of 2. Because each Walsh matrix is identical to the top-left quarter of the immediately higher-o...

code-golf binary-matrix

Anush

15:56

got a python answer so now I am happy... well only bash is better :)

caird coinheringaahing

16:09

I've been having a badge race with myself between Deputy (80 flags) and Copy Editor (500 edits), and I think it's coming to an end: 79/80 vs 471/500

Redwolf Programs

I'm still only halfway to the 80 edit one :p

caird coinheringaahing

Unless I can get in 29 edits before finding a flag-worthy post :P

@RedwolfPrograms I do a lot of editing :P

Redwolf Programs

I'm 40/80 for Strunk & White and 39/80 for Deputy

I've approved more suggested edits than I've written

caird coinheringaahing

@RedwolfPrograms My money's on Deputy winning that. Flags are often easier to do than edits

@RedwolfPrograms How close are you to Proofreader (100 suggested edit reviews)?

Redwolf Programs

46/100

I only started actively reviewing things a few months ago

caird coinheringaahing

16:13

Interestingly, only 17 people have that badge, despite being bronze

Redwolf Programs

That makes it the second rarest bronze badge you can possibly get anymore

caird coinheringaahing

After Synonymizer?

Redwolf Programs

Yup. Also, my new rarest badge is Inquisitve.

Electorate is in second, followed by Convention

caird coinheringaahing

Funny that Tumbleweed was awarded because of tips questions 3/4 times

Redwolf Programs

It'd be pretty hard to get that on a non-tips question

caird coinheringaahing

16:16

@RedwolfPrograms Mine is Archaeologist, soon to be Copy Editor

Redwolf Programs

Oh wow, that is rare

You were pretty close to getting Sheriff, too :p

caird coinheringaahing

Tag Editor is my rarest on Meta with 30

@RedwolfPrograms Close but no cigar :P

Redwolf Programs

Same here

How's Curious in second place for me, lol

caird coinheringaahing

@RedwolfPrograms Oh hey, I'm on 41/80 for Strunk and White on Meta :P

Redwolf Programs

Is Mortarboard even possible on Meta?

Weird, it is. Maybe if you get enough votes that you would get 200 reputation?

caird coinheringaahing

16:22

I thought it was if you get it on Main you get it on Meta but 815 != 36

Redwolf Programs

We've only got one uncontested category on Best of!

caird coinheringaahing

34

A: Should I really have been awarded mortarboard on a Per-site meta?

Just redefine it as "you received a lot of upvotes in a single day". So I think it is correct in spirit.

Only ever got Meta Mortarboard once: data.stackexchange.com/meta.codegolf/query/1361662/…

Because of this and this posted on the same day with a combined score of +32

Redwolf Programs

If there's no more feedback for Bot Factory KoTH (2.0), posting in an hour

2 hours later…

user

18:31

Any feedback?

Neil

18:43

@user well, you have to have an infinite number of values, but your example suggests tan(b-a) as the simplest solution if reals are allowed

user

19:00

@Neil Some scaling would be needed, but that's a really nice solution. Do you mean you intended to only have integers as the result, though?

Redwolf Programs

19:30

Bot Factory KoTH (2.0) is now posted!

caird coinheringaahing

@RedwolfPrograms Want some CVs on the first one?

Redwolf Programs

I tried a minute ago and the new one didn't show up in the search thing

caird coinheringaahing

It needs to have a positive score

Redwolf Programs

I almost just tried to VTC the new one lol

If I click "This does answer my question", will it immediately close it?

Oh nice, it did

Neil

@user yes my original solution had f ∈ ℤ × ℤ ↦ ℤ

New Main Posts

19:43

2

Q: Bot Factory KoTH (2.0)

In this challenge, bots (consisting of JS functions) move around an infinite factory (playing field), collecting characters. These characters can be used to build worker bots, or dropped for other bots to pick up. This challenge is a modified redo of Bot Factory KoTH, which was broken by a mistak...

king-of-the-hill javascript

user

19:55

@Neil Oh, I see. Well, a dirty hack to make mine work like that would be to just round away from zero :) I guess that's probably not what you intended, though.

I'm tempted to nominate [this Lenguage answer](https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/131882/95792) for "Most improved answer" so that I don't win by default. On the one hand, they didn't really turn 645529908926937253684695788965635909332404360034079 9394157991500940492270727190763049448735 1174269748937617561533841898064735499551 bytes into
2293382937520069758100171520285996319, but the original bf went from 40 bytes to 13 bytes, which is still extremely impressive.

Neil

20:50

@user I don't see how that would work as you wouldn't be able to guarantee that f(a,b) is zero only when a equals b

wait, I misunderstood

I was thinking I'd said tan(a) - tan(b) for some reason

Neil

21:04

@user 13/40 is pretty good. best I could find from my answers is 19/35: codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/211012/17602

user

@Neil Oops, I'm the one that misunderstood - I didn't see it was "iff" and not "if".

Actually, never mind, since a and b must be integers, and pi is rational, even though f(a, b) and f(a, b + pi) are the same, b + pi will always be irrational and won't work.

So would rounding away from zero work after all?

@Neil Unrelated question, but how did you find that answer? I'd like to do the same, but for all users on Code Golf. Do you have the link to your query?

caird coinheringaahing

@user A proper SEDE query might be difficult, as not everyone uses the <s> formatting when improving answers

Neil

@user I didn't use a query, I just looked at the first 5 pages of a code golf search for my recent answers

@user should do I think

Lyxal

21:27

Morning again

Redwolf Programs

Again?

Lyxal

Yeah

It was morning yesterday and now its morning rn

caird coinheringaahing

@RedwolfPrograms It happens everyday

Lyxal

^

Redwolf Programs

This is news to me

Lyxal

21:30

The more you know.

Redwolf Programs

I thought we were just getting really lucky every morning

Lyxal

There's been mornings for the last few million years dream.

Neil

21:51

heh, somebody randomly upvoted a five-year-old answer of mine, which allowed me to spot a trivial 1-byte golf

Lyxal

22:05

link.

user

22:19

@Neil Oh ok

Lyxal

22:44

An old laptop of mine is charging from a flat battery right now. I can't wait to see my crappy first attempt at an esolang again

Because said laptop still has the code I used

user

Didn't you use Git?

Adám

@user How would that help?

user

It might have been on Github or Gitlab then

New Bounties With No Deadlines

0

A: List of bounties with no deadline

50 rep for solving a challenge in an interpreter using an ACE exploit I've reached 1000 rep, so here's a small bounty for you RE/CTF enthusiasts for an answer I really want to see. CVE-2018-6849: Code execution results in code execution — TheZZAZZGlitch, "A friendly reminder: Lua scripts are arb...

Lyxal

@user not back in those days

This was before I did code golf and learnt good programming practices

3

user

22:51

@Lyxal Ah, when you said "back in those days," I thought you meant something like "Back in the good old days, when we used our eidetic memories to track changes and resolved conflicts through arm-wrestling"

@Lyxal Wait, how did code golf teach you good programming practices? I've found my code's gotten consistently worse as a result of my participation here.

Lyxal

@user I'm not that old

@user well not so much code golf but the meta game of code golf: language creation

Looking at other people's golflangs and their interpreters

Redwolf Programs

I just make any changes that could break something all at once and frantically hit Ctrl + Z if it does

2

Lyxal

I've learnt things from esolang creation I probably may not have otherwise known

Mostly in relation to parsing and tokenisation

user

Parsing is hard

Lyxal

Not once you have a decent parser

user

22:59

Well, that's the problem

Redwolf Programs

Breaking modern cryptography isn't hard once you break modern cryptography

2

user

I started on trying to make a semi-practical language about a year back, and I still haven't finished the parser

Lyxal

Well obviously parsing a stack based language is easier than parsing a practical language

user

True

Lyxal

But I feel I would know how to make a normal parser

It'd just be expanding the esolang parser to support variable length words

user

23:00

Tell me, do you use regex? Is it completely hand-rolled for extra optimization?

Lyxal

Frick regex

I once read that using regex is a bad idea when writing a parser

Redwolf Programs

Regex makes you think you can do cool stuff then an hour in you realize you can't

Lyxal

So I just go char by char

user

@RedwolfPrograms It took me about a month to realize that

Lyxal

@RedwolfPrograms recursive regex ftw

Redwolf Programs

23:02

I mean for an AoC challenge I had to auto-generate ten thousand regexes to match every number of surrounding parentheses possible because regex can't match those

user

How do you handle backtracking?

Lyxal

@user backtracking?

@RedwolfPrograms wow imagine not being able to use the cool features of PCRE

user

What I meant was "not backtracking". Not sure what it's actually called, maybe "cutting"?

Lyxal

Example?

user

Like if a match fails, and you don't want it go back and try something else

Redwolf Programs

23:03

Wait PCRE can handle matching brackets?

user

@Lyxal Gimme a second

Lyxal

Prolly

@user mind you my parser doesn't use regex

user

Neither does my new one

Lyxal

It helps to group strings as their own token first

That's what I've found

user

Okay, so the thing I was going to use it for was if you have a method call foo<bar>(baz, and something in baz is malformed, then you don't want it go back and try to parse it as maybe (foo < bar) > (baz...

Btw I know that syntax is ambiguous, it just felt better than Java's absurd this.<bar>foo(baz).

Lyxal

23:07

That's why you'd want to make syntax unambiguous

Or make it so that the parser realises that a < b > c is a function call outside of the scope of a condition

user

Well, suppose you have a + b ..., and you know (a + b) is a thing, and if the rest fails, you don't want it go and match on subtraction, etc.

Redwolf Programs

Or leave the ambiguity as an easter egg with a 1% chance of the other interpretation occuring

user

Uh...i don't think so

1% is too small, I'll make it 50

@Lyxal Probably a better idea, but I'm stubborn about my syntax

Redwolf Programs

Do you think it'd be too confusing if I gave mathematical symbols uses in my esolang that are completely unrelated to their usual function?

Some of them look like nice visual representations of what the operator does (i.e., branch three ways or something), but are already used for some other purpose

user

I'd say you should make it as intuitive as possible, so more people can easily use it

Lyxal

23:12

@RedwolfPrograms no it wouldn't

Adám

@RedwolfPrograms Not really. APL does this quite a bit.

user

There's a lot of Unicode symbols out there, hopefully you'll find some more

Lyxal

Ofc I can't say otherwise because I've done this myself

Unrelated String

even basic mathematical symbols are easily overloaded in a learner's mind

Lyxal

@RedwolfPrograms mnemonic over accurate

That's what I live by

And that's what I did with vyxal

I mean, I stuck to actual representation where possible but I prefer symbolic over tradition

caird coinheringaahing

23:14

@RedwolfPrograms Use exclusively letters with various accents, don’t even have to worry about it :ρ

Unrelated String

sometimes / is division and ÷ is integer division, sometimes ÷ is division and / is reduce and : is integer division

Redwolf Programs

I think I've mostly figured out the basics of my golfing language, so I can start adding operators now.

Unrelated String

and then most practical languages use * for multiplication but a lot of golflangs use it for exponentiation

user

@UnrelatedString As does APL

Unrelated String

and speaking of apl, j uses square brackets for what apl uses ⊣/⊢ for iirc which jelly just uses accented letters for

so don't worry about using symbols your own way

thought of square brackets because i'm going to use a right square bracket for one thing in perhaps and have no idea what i'll do with the left square bracket

Redwolf Programs

23:23

Square brackets are some of my favorite ASCII characters

Not counting half of the unprintable ones

user

@UnrelatedString May I suggest allowing them to execute arbitrary JavaScript/Python code?

Lyxal

@UnrelatedString left square bracket should do the inverse of right square bracket

@RedwolfPrograms is there a repo/gist/esolangs page we can have a look at?

Redwolf Programs

Not at the moment, but I can put my rough plans in a Gist

Haven't decided on a name

gist.github.com/RedwolfPrograms/…

Very rough planning document, don't expect it to be readable

Adám

23:39

@RedwolfPrograms Unnamed and [Unnamed] sound like excellent esolang names.

Redwolf Programs

Oh wait FizzBuzz will actually be 14 bytes

@Adám So would <all languages>

Adám

@RedwolfPrograms Why distinguish between Booleans and numbers?

Redwolf Programs

So that booleans can have separate operations overloaded

Adám

And I presume you'll have a convert-Bool-to-num function?

Lyxal

@RedwolfPrograms one problem: where do you account for the output needing to be FizzBuzz?

There seems to be nothing there to indicate a combination of fizz and buzz

Redwolf Programs

23:43

The last line was kind of unclear but it means to join Fizz and Buzz if both conditions are true and thus both are run

Lyxal

what about printing to stdout?

Redwolf Programs

Basically the quat. operator would return "Fizz" or "Buzz" normally, but if both had to return it'd put them in an array ["Fizz", "Buzz"]

Oh, it has to be \n joined :(

Make that fifteen bytes I guess

Adám

@Lyxal Surely implicit.

Neil

@RedwolfPrograms this guy would like to disagree with you, unless you're using ECMAScript regex: stackoverflow.com/a/47162099/182705

Lyxal

CMQ: What should string multiplication do?

I've asked before, and had interleaving as an answer, but I realised I already have a built-in for interleaving.

user

23:53

Cartesian product

Lyxal

already got a built-in for that too

Redwolf Programs

What tool would/do y'all use to plan out the codepage for a golfing language?

user

Alright, I'm stretching it a bit here, but if you're doing "foo" × "bar", then "bar" could be coerced to a list of chars, which could be coerced to a list of integers. So you get "foo" × [98, 97, 114]

And then just do normal string-by-integer multiplication

Not very useful, though

Adám

@Lyxal Apply capitalisation from one string to the other.

Redwolf Programs

Maybe since × looks like what you'd use to cross something out, "banana" × "na" could be "ba" or "bana"?

Lyxal

23:58

@Adám so for example "abc" * "DeF" = "AbC"?

Adám

@Lyxal Yes, exactly.

user

30

Q: "Multiply" two strings

This was inspired by a function I recently added to my language Add++. Therefore I will submit an short answer in Add++ but I won't accept it if it wins (it wouldn't be fair) Don't you hate it when you can multiply numbers but not strings? So you should correct that, right? You are to write a...

code-golf string

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Jan '2124

The Nineteenth Byte

The Nineteenth Byte: General discussion for codegolf.stackexc...

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