[Community puzzle] Bulk Email Generator

Puzzles
#1

This topic is about the puzzle Bulk Email Generator.

Feel free to send your feedback or ask some help here!

#2

I thought it was a very good challenge. I found (it|the puzzle|:slight_smile:) to be fun to solve, and just the right amount of difficulty. I think I enjoyed it because it at first glanced looked very simple, but then some of the edge cases took a little thought, so just like the real world, lol.

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#3

Thank you for the kind words. Much appreciated. :blush:

#4

About that, my solution passes all tests but fails the JBM Email validator.
Do you think there’s edge cases that are not covered in test cases? I can’t think of anything else.

#5

I don’t think so, but who knows? If you PM me your code I’ll take a look.

#6

i can’t pass it too, is there something like escaped characters in parenthesis text?

#7

That validator is supposed to be easier than the matching test, really.
You too can DM me your code for cross-verification, and I’ll take a look.

You two are getting me worried. There was a huge transient data-corruption-thingy around at the time I was trying to submit the puzzle, that actually prevented me from getting it out of draft for a long time, but that was supposed to be fixed.

#8

What tripped up djjeck’s code was the fact the “JBM Email” case contained a unicode curly apostrophe, and for some reason simply reading and writing it back messes it up.

Obviously proper UTF-8 management wasn’t supposed to be a part of the problem, so <Change Announcement> I’m editing it out.

Sorry for the unintended hurdle.

PS: for the curious, the string was “won’t”, which I replaced by “won’t”. It was outside of any parenthesized group.

#9

Makes me think that maybe I should start trying to validate all community submissions in C / C++ before approving them. It just slows down even further what is already a slow process for me. :slight_smile:

  • danBhentschel
#10

IMHO the best actual solution would be UI feedback in the problem editing interface that outlines any I/O box that contains non-ASCII Unicode say purple. And adds a warning before any non-draft commit in the lines of “Your I/O contains non-ASCII Unicode. This is known to make the problems much harder to debug in some languages. Are you sure you want to do this?”

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#11

I’ve mentioned this idea before. Unfortunately, I’m not holding my breath for it. I understand. People are busy. :slight_smile:

  • danBhentschel
#12

just confirming it’s working now, thx :slight_smile:

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#13

Failure
Found: Nothing
Expected: Nothing

… what it writes in test 3

N.S

#14

I do not understand this part “Random is defined as using the JBM level-0 twister: “for the ith choice, pick the ith clause (modulo the number of clauses)”.”. When it is the 4th choice and there are only 2 choices what word I have to pick? And for the 3th choice with only 2 choices?

#15

When it’s the 4th choice and there are only 2 clauses, you pick clause index 4 mod 2 = 0 (that’s the 0-indexed first one)
When it’s the 3rd choice and there are only 2 clauses, you pick clause index 3 mod 2 = 1 (that’s the 0-indexed second one)
Gah, shouldn’t answer before coffee, see below for proper answer.

#16

Thanks for your fast reply.

For the 3th test case the 4th line (and 4th choice to make) is “Does it (wrap|unwrap)?” and “wrap” must be used but I get:
Found: Does it wrap?
Expected: Does it unwrap?

#17

That’s because I’m explaining it bad, and stupid human convention to index at 1 for ordinals makes it worse.

The general idea is: you take the choices in order, not skipping any (i.e., starting with the “first”), looping when you move past the end.

Expressed mathematically involves actually using 0-based indices, so:

  • When it’s the [human] 4th choice and there are only 2 clauses, you pick clause [sane] 3 mod 2 = 1. Which translates to “second” in human terms.
  • When it’s the [human] 3rd choice and there are only 2 clauses, you pick clause [sane] 2 mod 2 = 0. Which translates to “first” in human terms.

But I think understanding the general idea is more important than reading the math.

So indeed “Does it (wrap|unwrap)” should unwrap.

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#18

Thanks for explaining, I fixed it but I still get some other results… Will skip this puzzle, I get the idea and believe my solution is correct. Thanks for your effort.

#19

Sorry, but personally I found the description of this puzzle completely confusing. First, this thing with “random” choices, but it’s okay, finally I got it without any help. But I don’t understand the main idea of the puzzle - should I print all possible templates (I mean like Cartesian product) or should I print only one template replacing placeholders with one global increasing index for all choices? It’s not clear and it’s not fun

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#20

Seems puzzling to me you could get it without understanding the main idea.

But if that suited you, great!