Confused on what a challenge is asking?

shoulders · Post by **shoulders** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 11:28 pm

Unfortunately I have no idea what I am asked to do in the challenge "floating". Could someone give me a hint?

shoulders

Allosentient · Post by **Allosentient** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 4:39 am

To the person above: You can solve this very quickly. Look at the type of category it is under. If you want a better hint, C# is not a very good language to do this in.

shoulders · Post by **shoulders** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 12:00 pm

shall I take a look at the category *and* at the challenge's title? I did so, but I am missing *a* little bit...

shoulders

m!nus · Post by **m!nus** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 9:46 pm

seems to me that way aswell, i just don't find the answer although i'm pretty sure the title is the solution

sigi · Post by **sigi** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 8:58 pm

It's good that you're asking, because I have a problem with the following challenge:

"In the first million digits, what's the longest repeated sequence?"

What is a "repeated sequence" per your definition? Is 123123 one or does it have to be something like 55555? In other words, does the "cycle length" need to be exactly one?

As a general rule, in challenges like this where the wording is not there to give hints but only to describe the problem, please be more formal about your specification. There are many more instances of challenges where you can kind of guess what's being asked of you by using common sense, but actually the question is missing some information to make it water tight.

rmplpmpl · Post by **rmplpmpl** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 9:15 pm

m!nus wrote:seems to me that way aswell, i just don't find the answer although i'm pretty sure the title is the solution

it is indeed

the_impaler · Post by **the_impaler** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 6:35 pm

[quote="sigi"]It's good that you're asking, because I have a problem with the following challenge:

"In the first million digits, what's the longest repeated sequence?"

What is a "repeated sequence" per your definition? Is 123123 one or does it have to be something like 55555? In other words, does the "cycle length" need to be exactly one?

As a general rule, in challenges like this where the wording is not there to give hints but only to describe the problem, please be more formal about your specification. There are many more instances of challenges where you can kind of guess what's being asked of you by using common sense, but actually the question is missing some information to make it water tight.[/quote]
Repeated sequence is not the same as sequences of repeated digits, I think in this the challenge description is quite precise. I asked the question before if the sequence can be overlapping - like in your example "55555" has "5555" as longest repeating sequence. Well, when I solved it I realized that it actually doesn't matter.

sigi · Post by **sigi** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 10:22 pm

OK, I admit that I might have confused "repeated sequence" with "repeating sequence". I guess I fully understand the question now.

Anyway, I'm still convinced that exactly these sorts of questions should be followed by a brief, but exact, formal definition of the question.

theStack · Post by **theStack** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 12:24 pm

Just a short question to the "Once upon a time" challenge. By "hackerland" do you mean hacker.org?

Post by **adum** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 10:05 pm

yes, that's right for Once Upon a Time

the_impaler · Post by **the_impaler** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 10:28 pm

I think I have coded it right but I am getting "failed to run correctly"
I saved the test maze html page and converted it into memory init file and my HVM code solves it ok in python HVM.
It takes about 25000 cycles. Is the limit still 40000 ?

gfoot · Post by **gfoot** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 11:28 pm

Make sure you get the right corner to start at (I got it wrong...)

the_impaler · Post by **the_impaler** » Sat Nov 29, 2008 4:34 am

gfoot wrote:Make sure you get the right corner to start at (I got it wrong...)

From bottom left to upper right.
I tested it with simple 23,23,0 and with one on the screen and test maze #1. I can trace the output and it is solution for the maze. The error message is different - "failed to run correctly" sounds more like it is not a valid code but it is.
Ok, I think I figured what the problem is . On one of the mazes it does hit 40000 limit. Better compile with -O3 now...

Project hash brown · Post by **Project hash brown** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 6:55 pm

Can some one explain this for me please, by my working the answer should be 24 not 26, is there something im missing?

"I have a special piece of text that represents a specific value. Here's how I calculate it:
# Start reading left to right
# If a character is a digit, I add it to my sum
# If it's an 'x', I remove it and go left two places
# Continue until I hit the end of the string
For example, the string '123x456' has a value of 26."

tails · Post by **tails** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 8:14 pm

Code: Select all

123x456  sum:1
^
123x456  sum:3
 ^
123x456  sum:6
  ^
123x456  sum:6
   ^
123 456  sum:8
 ^
123 456  sum:11
  ^
123 456  sum:15
    ^
123 456  sum:20
     ^
123 456  sum:26
      ^

Confused on what a challenge is asking?

Labyrinth problem