TL;DR

On with Advent of Code puzzle 5 from 2021: an overkill solution.

This challenge basically requires implementing a system to track Bingo! boards and figure out which of them is the winner.

When no immediate, clever solution comes to my mind (which is, let’s say it, most of the times), I usually start implementing features that will probably be useful. I know, it’s bottom-up and tends to require much more effort, but at least it gets me moving towards the end.

This year I’m also trying to do some more practice in Raku, which is another reason why I tend to err on the regular, boring stuff. Which has also the advantage of usually being also readable and maintenable, so regular boring stuff for the win!.

In this puzzle, I opted for implementing a full-fledged class that allows managing a board, with all bells and whistles and batteries included:

• tracking the contents of each cell, of course, indexed by row and column;
• do the same tracking by the value they contain inside;
• track the amount of marked cells by row;
• track the amount of marked cells by column;
• track a new value extracted and mark the related cell, if present;
• track the score of the board, which gets calculated as soon as a board has a complete row or column of marked cells;
• query the object to see if it’s in a winning state;
• printing the board;
• dumping the contents;
• resetting the board to the original state;
• convenience method to sweep the whole board, both by rows and by columns.

Here’s the monster:

class Board {
   has %!cell-for;
   has @!cell-at;
   has %!count-for;
   has $!score = Nil;

   multi method BUILD (Str:D :$desc) {
      my $ri = 0;
      for $desc.split(/\r?\n/) -> $line {
         %!count-for<rows>[$ri] = 0;
         my $ci = 0;
         for $line.split(/\s+/) -> $cell {
            %!count-for<cols>[$ci] //= 0;
            next unless $cell ~~ /\d/;
            @!cell-at[$ri][$ci] = %!cell-for{$cell} = [$ri, $ci, 0, $cell];
            ++$ci;
         }
         ++$ri;
      }
   }
   method sweep-by-cols (&cb) {
      my $n-rows = @!cell-at.end;
      my $n-cols = @!cell-at[0].end;
      for 0 .. $n-cols -> $ci {
         for 0 .. $n-rows -> $ri {
            &cb(@!cell-at[$ri][$ci]);
         }
      }
   }
   method sweep-by-rows (&cb) {
      my $n-rows = @!cell-at.end;
      my $n-cols = @!cell-at[0].end;
      for 0 .. $n-rows -> $ri {
         for 0 .. $n-cols -> $ci {
            &cb(@!cell-at[$ri][$ci]);
         }
      }
   }
   method dump () {
      @!cell-at.say;
      %!cell-for.say;
      %!count-for.say;
   }
   method print () {
      my $last;
      my @line;
      self.sweep-by-rows: -> $cell {
         if ($last && $last[0] < $cell[0]) {
            @line.join(' ').put;
            @line = ();
         }
         @line.push: '%2d%s'.sprintf($cell[3], $cell[2] ?? '*' !! ' ');
         $last = $cell;
      };
      @line.join(' ').put;
   }
   method mark ($value) {
      return unless %!cell-for{$value}:exists;
      my $cell = %!cell-for{$value};
      $cell[2] = 1;
      %!count-for<rows>[$cell[0]]++;
      %!count-for<cols>[$cell[1]]++;
      if ! defined $!score {
         if (@!cell-at.elems == %!count-for<cols>[$cell[1]])
               || (@!cell-at[0].elems == %!count-for<rows>[$cell[0]]) {
            $!score = 0;
            self.sweep-by-rows: -> $cell {
               $!score += $cell[3] unless $cell[2];
            }
            $!score *= $value;
         }
      }
      return self;
   }
   method reset () {
      for %!count-for.values -> $seq {
         for @$seq -> $item is rw {
            $item = 0;
         }
      }
      for %!cell-for.values -> $cell {
         $cell[2] = 0;
      }
      $!score = Nil;
   }
   method won () { return defined $!score }
   method score () { return $!score }
}

There is indeed a custom builder, because we’re taking the inputs from a file so it comes as text that must be parsed.

At the end of the day, only methods mark, won and score were actually needed (the latter two being more or less the same, as you can see from the implementation). Well, there’s also reset, of course, as well as using sweep-by-rows inside mark when we calculate the score.

All in all it’s been a fun experience and the result seems tidy and to the point.

And, of course, incredibly overkill.

If you’re curious to run the full code, you can find it here. In any case… stay safe!