OverviewStarts: Saturday, October 22, 2016
Ends: Monday, October 31th, 2016 @ 12:00pm(noon) EST
Difficulty: Intermidiate
Type: Short-Code
Create an alias that returns a string containing all English alphanumeric characters:
- Lower-case English letters (a-z)
- Uppercase English letters (A-Z)
- Integers from 0 to 9 (0-9)
Examples
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789
RWODA6zHQ2TdvYslewyg0FSaiIjbJhp1k95VquMKLtmfEGCx3rUnoXP47Z8cNB
- Alias must be named alphanumeric
- Only the characters a-z, A-Z and 0-9 are permitted to be in the returned string
- White space with in the returned string is NOT permitted
- Duplicate characters are NOT permitted
- Order does not matter
- No mismatched brackets`{}` or parentheses`()`
- No literal strings
- No enviornment dependancies such as $os, $dbuh, $dbuw, etc
- mIRC congifuration dependancies are allowed such as $cid, $comchar, $modespl. Assume the value for a freshly installed never connected mIRC instance
- Entries can contain supporting aliases
- Entries do not have to run clean but must be able to re-run indefinitely.
- Entries must not require user inputs such as from dialogs, entering a command, $?, $input, etc
- No File-system access, COMs, DLLs, or Sockets
- Do not abuse rules, test alias, or given external resources
Literal StringsAny expression/input/text that isn't a command and doesn't evaluate into something else is a literal string.
- Space(ascii character 32) is considered a literal string when used as a character instead of an mSL seperator
- Mathmatical and conditional operators are considered a literal string when used as character(s) instead of their operator functionality
- Escaped identifiers via $! are considered literal strings: $!abcd
Identifiers that evaluate to themselves are considered literal strings: $true, $false, $yes, $no, $ok, $cancel, $~, etcIdentifiers that are simply character aliases are considered literal strings: $cr, $lf, etcIgnore these two rules; they are allowed.
Valid Examples:
/thing1 $thing2 $thing3
if ($thing1 == $thing2)
if (%thingA)
$calc($thing1 + $thing2)
Invalid Examples:
$thingA(abc) - Uses the literal string 'abc'
$thingA($thing1 $thing2) - Uses a literal space
$thingA($thing1 + $thing2) - Operator used as a literal string
- Entry are to be submitted via
Forum Privage Message with the topic "$alphanumeric Challenge - Entry"*
- You may submit as many times as you like, only your latest valid entry will be ranked at the end of the challenge.
- Valid Entries are ranked from shortest to longest where shorter is better
- Length will be calculated using the 'bytes' result from
HERE- I will check the forums at least once a day for new entries, evaluate them and respond to submitters if their entry is valid or not.
*: You may submit entries over IRC private messages but I cannot guarantee I will receive it.TestingEntries will be saved as alphanumeric.mrc
Entries will be loaded into a fresh disconnected portable mIRC v7.46 instance's
REMOTE section.
Entries are loaded after the test alias's script file
The testing aliases do NOT check for string literals; this is done manually.
- Any entries that make use of a string literals that get passed the manual check are considered valid for the challenge. I will not fault participants for my mistakes
;; /test_alphanumeric @Times
;; Tests the challenge alias $alphanumeric
;;
;; @Times - optional
;; The number of times to test the alias for failure
;; If not specified, defaults to 10
alias test_alphanumeric {
if ($isid) {
return
}
if ($_test_alphanumeric($iif($0, $1, 10))) {
echo 04 -a Failed $v1
}
else {
echo 03 -a All tests passed! Example Result: $alphanumeric
}
}
alias -l _test_alphanumeric {
var %x = 0, %result
while (%x < $1) {
inc %x
%result = $alphanumeric
if (!$len(%result)) {
return $ord(%x) iteration: Nothing returned
}
elseif ($regex(%result, /([^a-zA-Z0-9])/)) {
return $ord(%x) iteration: Returned non-alpha-numeric character: $regml(1)
}
elseif ($regex(%result, /(.).*?\1/)) {
return $ord(%x) iteration: Duplicate character: $regml(1)
}
elseif ($regsubex(abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789, /[ $+ %result $+ ]/g,) || $v1 === 0) {
return $ord(%x) iteration: Missing character(s): $v1
}
}
}For the sake of being able to compete while running the challenge I am allowing myself to update my entry until the first valid entry is submitted by someone else. At which point my own entry will be considered finalized.
1297fdce56d8494d857a0cc079fd1d5593c99524 - Not Finalized
- $sha1() of my entry's alphanumeric.mrc file
- contains an unintended trailing line break that mIRC injects, which is not counted in my final byte count
