in reply to andye - a different tack Re: "Countdown" (golf)
in thread "Countdown" (golf)

Nice, you managed to complete all 18 holes in the same number of strokes as it took me to do the back 9 with my first entry.... ;-)

Although, I can trim a couple chars, it's no longer warnings-safe: 

#        1         2         3         4         5         6         7
#234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
+12
for(<D>){$n=$o=$_;for$c(@_){$n+=s/$c//};/^$/&&push@{$w[$n]},$o}@{$w[-1
+]}

[download]

-Blake

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re:**3 a different tack: "Countdown" (golf)
by jynx (Priest) on Dec 02, 2001 at 04:34 UTC

    This is untested, but the following can probably happen:

    Change the outer for loop to a map (1 character)
    Change the /^$/ to just $_ (2 characters)
    Change the @{$w[-1]} to @{pop@w} (1 character)
    Drop the semi-colon after the inner for loop (1 character)

    Which gives us:

    #234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
+12
map{$n=$o=$_;for$c(@_){$n+=s/$c//}$_&&push@{$w[$n]},$o}<D>;@{pop@w}

    [download]
    67 characters?
    jynx
[reply]
[d/l]
      The map and pop suggestions work (very nice)... The $_ trick wont though, because (get this) $_ isn't actually empty at that point, it contains a single newline. Interestingly enough /^$/ will match a single newline. 
      perl -le '$_ = "\n"; print /^$/'
1

      [download]
      So, a tested version of your code comes in at 69 chars.... 
      #        1         2         3         4         5         6
#23456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
map{$n=$o=$_;for$c(@_){$n+=s/$c//}/^$/&&push@{$w[$n]},$o}<D>;@{pop@w}

      [download]
      Update: The following code illustrates the issue a bit better...
      Notice how /^$/ && is not identical to $_ || and in this example the difference is critical: 
      #!/usr/bin/perl -wT
use strict;

my @arr             = ("\n","dog\n","cat\n");
my $patternmatch    = 0;
my $underscorematch = 0;

/^$/ && $patternmatch++    for @arr;
$_   || $underscorematch++ for @arr;

print "Patternmatch    = $patternmatch\n";     # <==  prints 1
print "Underscorematch = $underscorematch\n";  # <==  prints 0

      [download]

      -Blake

[reply]
[d/l]
[select]

In Section Meditations