[numbers] Results

Well, here are the results.

01) script 13, Zack Coburn
02) script 3, Dennis Okon (honcho)
03) script 7, Ludovico Grossi (lamase)
04) script 8, Matthew Sherman
05) script 1, Alexander Mavrin
06) script 5, Ivan Sanchez
07) script 12, Wouter Smeenk (varan)
08) script 9, Neil Cahill (vertigo)
09) script 6, Kevin Hjelden (FryGuy1013)
10) script 11, Rolando Gonzales Chevere
11) script 4, Florent Delgoulet
12) script 10, Richard Story
13) script 2, Ben Hague

Here is a long explanation of results:

Only two scripts followed all the rules completely and didn't produce any invalid solutions. Those are scripts 13 and 3, with 110 and 97 solutions, respectively. They take first two places.

Script 7 produced 111 solutions and worked without any errors, except that it tried to write the log file into a wrong directory. It takes the third place.

Fourth place goes to script 8, which produced 900 solutions, yet failed to write to the correct directory and also produced an invalid log format.

Script 1 outputted timeouts on 9/12 input sets, but more importantly, in the case of (1,2,3,4,5,6,101) it returned 6 invalid solutions, all of which evaluated to 0/0 (e.g. (1-5+4)/(2*3-6)). It is very unfortunate for it to do so, because it would've won with 2881(!) solutions. However, it only gets 5th place.

6th place goes to script 5, which produced 729 valid solutions, but also produced a number of invalid solutions, resolving to -target instead of target (e.g. (((59-38-33-2)*24)+43) evals to -293, not 293).

Script 12 produced 437 valid solutions and ran OK in 10 runs (except log location/format), but it produced duplicates in 2 runs, so it gets 7th place.

Script 9 produced 373 valid solutions, but also produced duplicates and used numbers more than once. It gets 8th place.

Script 6 used " " instead of a comma as a separator, and produced invalid solutions and duplicates. It also produced 486 valid solutions, however, so it gets 9th place.

Script 11 produced 18 valid solutions, but included duplicates in 3 sets. It gets 10th place.

Script 4 used numbers that weren't even present in the input set, and also produced duplicates and completely invalid expressions (e.g. 6 - ( ( 5 ) ) - 8 evals to -7, not 101). It gets 11th place.

Script 10 didn't include the input sets in its log file, and also produced duplicates and used numbers more than once (((8+9) - (6-9*10)) = 101). It gets 12th place. I only checked the first two input sets, because I didn't feel like inserting the numbers into log files for my log checker to work.

Finally, script 2 failed to run at all on my server, it seg.faulted Apache on every try - not even HTTP headers were returned. (I also tried to run it from command line with the same result; I guess 10MB PHP file is not a good idea?) It gets the last place.

7th place is good for my put-together-at-the-last-moment script

When will the next contest be up?

Varan

I didn't think my concentrate-on-the-rules-and-not-the-search plan would work so well.

Yep it did with THIS contest

What system did you use to run the scripts? I ask because my script works fine on my Linux box with 1 G of memory and a XP2000+ processor and PHP 4.3.2 and Apache 1.3.27.

I'm not too disappointed given that it was the first php program I've ever written and that it did solve the problem quite well. It would have been even better if I'd found the right approach earlier and had time to refine it properly.

Ben Hague

Quote (from php.ini) memory_limit = 32M. Is that a different memory limit?

Ben Hague

What do you mean by an invalid log format for script #8?

I'm a little miffed at being dropped on a technicality.

Your solution did not include a line from the input file, and the lines that included solutions also had some mumbo-jumbo

While it's true that it's a technicality, you still didn't follow the rules...

Just out of curiousity, how did your script do xs0? I know you were late, but it'd still be fun to see how much you'd have whooped our butts

Also, is it possible to see the log files? I don't know how it's possible that mine can report invalid results or duplicates

Wow!

I'd get 2905 results without any errors


Sure, which script is yours?

As said "The Bat": "Sad but true".

I'm sorry xs0, I disagree with your comments regarding script #8.

Here is a sample of my output

This says

Line 1: input ( 33, 22, 48, 95, 36, 63 ) target 643
Line 2: solution ((((33 * 22) + 48) - 95) - 36) = 643
Line 3: solution (((63 - (33 / 22)) * (48 - 36)) - 95) = 643
Line 4: <blank line>
Line 5: next input ( 58, 48, 60, 43, 65, 64 ) target 652
Line 6: solution (((((60 - 48) * 58) - 43) - 65) + 64) = 652
Line 7: solution (((58 * 64) - (48 * 65)) + 60) = 652

The gobbledygook you refer to just displays my scripts thinking as a courtesy:
Base equation: '01*2+3-4-'
The inputs I used: 01234 (inputs 0, 1, 2, 3, 4)

This matches the log format requirement just fine.

I know what it means, but "input ( 33, 22, 48, 95, 36, 63 ) target 643" is not a line from the input file, and "'01*2+3-4-' mapping 01234, set 0 => ((((33 * 22) + 48) - 95) - 36) = 643" is not a solution.