Need help about the 'Russian Dolls' challenge

[DaymItzJack]

I wouldn't of known what to do in the command prompt. I don't really want to discuss it too far in this thread, might reveal something.

However, with the program I was using, all I had to do was double click a thousand times.

[yyiinn]

Cheers CodeX,

yeah would hav been on that one well into the new year without that!

nice one )

[CodeX]

You're welcome

On the Python size of things, Python does have a module to deal with the decompression and only needs one line to extract the contents of 1 file into another, although I haven't tried it I think it should work with this challenge, all you need is the source and target filename leaving out parameters to specify extraction or compression type as you might have in command line with something like 7zip but you do have to know the compression method to know which module to use (*nix file command or windows equivalent anyone?).

[laz0r]

I'm new to bash scripting (which I guess is what your trying to imply) so would you be able to help recommend a way to start out or another method?

Thanks

[CodeX]

you can use any scripting/programming language that supports system calls or that can extract compressed files, Python can do both of these easily and quickly. As for starting bash I'd say just google for a tutorial on it as there are some good ones

[TechnoDemon]

@CodeX

do you mean this??

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash

[CodeX]

not necessarily, I was just suggesting bash as a tool - not it's shebang

[TechnoDemon]

Hehehe... i got it...
Now let's give it a try...

[Masti6]

Heya all! I'm starting to think that CodeX might be getting a little tired to see me post my questions on various forums but HERE IT GOES AGAIN! (Awesome song btw)
Anyways, I only know PHP language so far, and not even that well. I can do loops and if-else commands, but as for os commands, I know quite alot. But not even a single one to open 999 archieves. (unzip?).
Any tip for PHP or .bat files appreciated!

[Masti6]

Just asking a random oracle would do the same thing?
Plus, asking "what does "..." mean" ain't leading anywhere.
Or is there a specific "Insert question here!" -box in addition to the normal search box?

[laz0r]

Actually, if you have Mac OS it's trivial - otherwise I found bashing it worked.

[CodeX]

if you can do OS commands (via command line, not point & click) then this should be trivial, assuming your on windows you could do this with a bath file (similar to bash). Command line allows you to explicitly do something such as extract doll.bin from doll.bin, all you have to do is figure some way of doing that maybe with something like a while loop (while the extracted file has extractable content). PHP can handle compressed files, you just need to look up/search for relevant functions, it might be a bit of a struggle if your not used to this kind of thing but if you keep thinking of things you need to do to get it done then you should manage in the end, I think it's very important to be efficient at researching functions/topics to be good at solving these problems and it's especially handy when your starting off with programming, otherwise you'll think the world is limited to control structures and printing trivial text/numbers.

Also if your having problems searching the forums using PHPBB2's built in search (which I never use) you should use google like so:

site:hacker.org some question or search content here

Google also has other things you can specify such as inurl: which can be useful if you only want certain things such as threads and not searches.

[Masti6]

Thanks, I didn't solve it with PHP nor using only bath, but something in addition. Thanks for the directions!

[JayArr]

nice one. why don't ppl who want to learn programming just go here ^^
you got it all covered.

[kordosoft]

lolex... this is a fat Russian doll(Girl). Hardest part was to find out the the compressor type used