[ANN] Code Golf Challenge : 1,000 Digits Of Pi

[Carl Drinkwater]

Hi all,

Code Golf's 12th challenge has just been added to the site. It asks you
to calculate the first 1,000 digits of Pi - Something I'm sure most of
you have thought about, but never done. You can see the challenge at :

http://codegolf.com/1000-digits-of-pi

For those who haven't heard of codegolf.com, it can be described as
"allowing you to show off your code-fu by trying to solve coding
problems using the least number of keystrokes."

The site currently supports Perl, PHP, Python and Ruby with Scheme to
(hopefully) follow soon. Your entries are automatically executed and
scored - No need to wait for someone to validate your code.

Other challenges include implementing the Vigenere Cipher, Prime
factors, SHA-256 Hashing as well as the obvious 99 Bottles Of Beer. All
of the challenges are competitive but there is still scope to well in
them, even if you're new to the site.

I hope some of you will find this interesting, and sorry for disturbing
you if not!

Have fun,
Carl.

 

[James Edward Gray II]

Hi all,

Code Golf's 12th challenge has just been added to the site. It
asks you to calculate the first 1,000 digits of Pi - Something I'm
sure most of you have thought about, but never done. You can see
the challenge at :

http://codegolf.com/1000-digits-of-pi

Darn it! They blocked my attempt to use open-uri. How's a guy
suppose to cheat with these restrictions. Sheesh!

James Edward Gray II

require"open-uri";puts"3."+open("http://www.joyofpi.com/
pi.html").read.gsub(/\s/,"")[/\d{1000}/]

 

[Harold Hausman]

Hi all,

Code Golf's 12th challenge has just been added to the site. It
asks you to calculate the first 1,000 digits of Pi - Something I'm
sure most of you have thought about, but never done. You can see
the challenge at :

http://codegolf.com/1000-digits-of-pi

Darn it! They blocked my attempt to use open-uri. How's a guy
suppose to cheat with these restrictions. Sheesh!

James Edward Gray II

require"open-uri";puts"3."+open("http://www.joyofpi.com/
pi.html").read.gsub(/\s/,"")[/\d{1000}/]

idk James, that might change it from an exercise in code-fu into an
exercise in who-has-the-shortest-domain-name-fu..

Anyone have any idea how they're safely running the code on the server?

Freaky freaky sandbox action?

-Harold

 

[Carl Drinkwater]

Hi,

Darn it! They blocked my attempt to use open-uri. How's a guy suppose
to cheat with these restrictions. Sheesh!

We wouldn't want to make it too easy for you!

require"open-uri";puts"3."+open("http://www.joyofpi.com/pi.html").read.gsub(/\s/,"")[/\d{1000}/]

Believe it or not, someone is 30-odd bytes better than that and he's
(presumably) actually calculating the digits!

Regards,
Carl.

 

[Carl Drinkwater]

Hi Harold,

Anyone have any idea how they're safely running the code on the server?

Freaky freaky sandbox action?

No, Freaky freaky jail-and-chroot action - We can support pretty much
any language that way. I might finally get round to writing an article
about how we're doing it, but I've been saying that for months, so I
wouldn't hold my breath!

Regards,
Carl.

 

[James Edward Gray II]

Hi all,

Code Golf's 12th challenge has just been added to the site. It
asks you to calculate the first 1,000 digits of Pi - Something I'm
sure most of you have thought about, but never done. You can see
the challenge at :

http://codegolf.com/1000-digits-of-pi

Another blocked cheat! These people clearly do not appreciate
cheating as they should.

James Edward Gray II

#!ruby -rbigdecimal -rbigdecimal/math
include BigMath;puts"3."+BigDecimal.PI(t=1000).to_s[3,t]

 

[John Carter]

Another blocked cheat! These people clearly do not appreciate cheating as
they should.

James Edward Gray II

#!ruby -rbigdecimal -rbigdecimal/math
include BigMath;puts"3."+BigDecimal.PI(t=1000).to_s[3,t]

Indeed they should appreciate it...
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0609.html#12

John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
Tait Electronics Fax : (64)(3) 359 4632
PO Box 1645 Christchurch Email : (e-mail address removed)
New Zealand

"We have more to fear from
The Bungling of the Incompetent
Than from the Machinations of the Wicked." (source unknown)

 

[Martin S. Weber]

(...)
I hope some of you will find this interesting, and sorry for disturbing
you if not!

Code golfing is not for me, yet watching others do is very amusing.
So when will the submitted entries be open to public ?

-Martin

 

[Patrick Hurley]

Code golfing is not for me, yet watching others do is very amusing.
So when will the submitted entries be open to public ?

-Martin

They are still discussing it on their forums, but I just looked today
and tried out the 99 bottles of beer. I have the shortest Ruby (202
bytes), but I am only tied for 10th place overall. The best Perl entry
is kicking my butt at 176 bytes. I think this is probably due to the
slightly more verbose string interpolation in Ruby, but I am
interested in what could be done to further shrink my script:

@a='#{n} bottle#{n>1?:s:""} of beer'
@b=" on the wall"
(n=99).times{puts eval"\"#@a#@b, #@a.\n\#{n-=1;n<1?(n=99;'Go to the
store and buy some more'):'Take one down and pass it around'},
#@a#@b.\n\n\""}

pth

 

[Carl Drinkwater]

Hi Patrick,

They are still discussing it on their forums, but I just looked today
and tried out the 99 bottles of beer. I have the shortest Ruby (202
bytes), but I am only tied for 10th place overall. The best Perl entry
is kicking my butt at 176 bytes. I think this is probably due to the
slightly more verbose string interpolation in Ruby, but I am
interested in what could be done to further shrink my script:

Very good attempt! Unfortunately, the shortest Ruby is 186 bytes, but
both people who have got that score have better solutions in Perl, so
their Ruby entries don't show on the Overall Leaderboard. (Each
language is scored individually as well as there being an overall
leaderboard.)

@a='#{n} bottle#{n>1?:s:""} of beer'
@b=" on the wall"
(n=99).times{puts eval"\"#@a#@b, #@a.\n\#{n-=1;n<1?(n=99;'Go to the
store and buy some more'):'Take one down and pass it around'},
#@a#@b.\n\n\""}

You can save three bytes by including a literal newline instead of \n :

http://pastie.caboo.se/13961

I'm sure you can shave more bytes of it!

Regards,
Carl.

 

[MonkeeSage]

Wow, ya'll are good code golfers! Of the few challenges I've been able
to solve so far, my solutions are much bigger than the winners (about
in the middle from smallest to largest). I guess I'm not gonna be the
Tiger Woods of code golfing. My best effort on the 99 bottles challenge
is 243 bytes

i="%d bottle%s of beer"
j=" on the wall"
k="\nTake one down and pass it around, "
l="\nGo to the store and buy some more, "
99.downto(1){|x|m=x-1>0?[k,x-1]:[l,99];n=i%[x,s if x>1)];
puts n+j+', '+n+'.'+m[0]+i%[m[1],s if m[1]>1)]+j+".\n\n"}

Regards,
Jordan

 

[Carl Drinkwater]

Hey Jordan,

Wow, ya'll are good code golfers! Of the few challenges I've been able
to solve so far, my solutions are much bigger than the winners (about
in the middle from smallest to largest). I guess I'm not gonna be the
Tiger Woods of code golfing. My best effort on the 99 bottles challenge
is 243 bytes

i="%d bottle%s of beer"
j=" on the wall"
k="\nTake one down and pass it around, "
l="\nGo to the store and buy some more, "
99.downto(1){|x|m=x-1>0?[k,x-1]:[l,99];n=i%[x,s if x>1)];
puts n+j+', '+n+'.'+m[0]+i%[m[1],s if m[1]>1)]+j+".\n\n"}

I tell you what though, if obfuscated code were the aim, you would
surely win! I like the use of :s to get the "s" to pluralise the
bottle, I'm sure I could use that somewhere.

I don't know what tips to give you really, other that your code doesn't
need to be that complicated! Stick in there though, it takes a bit of a
mindset change to golf.

C.

 

[MonkeeSage]

I tell you what though, if obfuscated code were the aim, you would
surely win!

Hehe! You should see some of my javascript bookmarklets! It's kind of
fun to break all the rules of good programming though.

I like the use of :s to get the "s" to pluralise the
bottle, I'm sure I could use that somewhere.

I actually gipped that from Patrick's code above (i.e., the ternary in
@a).

I don't know what tips to give you really, other that your code doesn't
need to be that complicated! Stick in there though, it takes a bit of a
mindset change to golf.

Thanks! I don't think I'm clever enough to beat most of the folks, but
it's fun to try.

Regards,
Jordan

 

[Sander Land]

(presumably) actually calculating the digits!

I got a 64 bytes version now, based on the "tiny c program" from
http://www.boo.net/~jasonp/pipage.html
And it does calculate the digits, although i'm not yet sure how

I don't care much for these rankings, so what would be a nice time to
post this without spoiling it for others?

 

[Leslie Viljoen]

Hi all,

Code Golf's 12th challenge has just been added to the site. It
asks you to calculate the first 1,000 digits of Pi - Something I'm
sure most of you have thought about, but never done. You can see
the challenge at :

http://codegolf.com/1000-digits-of-pi

Darn it! They blocked my attempt to use open-uri. How's a guy
suppose to cheat with these restrictions. Sheesh!

James Edward Gray II

require"open-uri";puts"3."+open("http://www.joyofpi.com/
pi.html").read.gsub(/\s/,"")[/\d{1000}/]

Haha, ever the cheater, James Gray!

 

[ara.t.howard]

Hi all,

Code Golf's 12th challenge has just been added to the site. It
asks you to calculate the first 1,000 digits of Pi - Something I'm
sure most of you have thought about, but never done. You can see
the challenge at :

http://codegolf.com/1000-digits-of-pi

Darn it! They blocked my attempt to use open-uri. How's a guy
suppose to cheat with these restrictions. Sheesh!

James Edward Gray II

require"open-uri";puts"3."+open("http://www.joyofpi.com/
pi.html").read.gsub(/\s/,"")[/\d{1000}/]

Haha, ever the cheater, James Gray!

i tried that too. i figure they've munged $:, but a concerted effort to use

load absolute_path_to_open_uri_rb

may get it. ;-)

-a