TL;DR

On with TASK #2 from The Weekly Challenge #146. Enjoy!

The challenge

Consider the following Curious Fraction Tree:

You are given a fraction, member of the tree created similar to the above sample.

Write a script to find out the parent and grandparent of the given member.

Example 1:

Input: $member = '3/5';
Output: parent = '3/2' and grandparent = '1/2'

Example 2:

Input: $member = '4/3';
Output: parent = '1/3' and grandparent = '1/2'

The questions

This seems one of those induction-based challenges that can probably give rise to a whole host of wildly different interpretations and solutions. I’ll assume my take is… the right one (also in lack of alternatives, right now).

The solution

From the example image, it seems that the parent of a valid node can be found as follows:

• every fraction has a numerator and a denominator
• if the numerator is smaller than the denominator, the parent shares the same numerator but the denominator is the difference between the denominator and the numerator from the child;
• otherwise, the parent’s numerator is the difference between the two, and the denominator is the same as the child.

Easier coded than told, I suppose. Let’s start with Perl:

#!/usr/bin/env perl
use v5.24;
use warnings;
use experimental 'signatures';
no warnings 'experimental::signatures';

my $member = shift // '4/3';
my $parent = parent_of($member);
my $grandparent = parent_of($parent);
say "parent = '$parent' and grandparent = '$grandparent'";

sub parent_of ($frac) {
   my ($num, $den) = split m{/}mxs, $frac;
   join '/', $num < $den ? ($num, $den - $num) : ($num - $den, $den);
}

Raku now:

#!/usr/bin/env raku
use v6;
sub MAIN (Str:D $member = '4/3') {
   my $parent = parent-of($member);
   my $grandparent = parent-of($parent);
   put "parent = '$parent' and grandparent = '$grandparent'";
}

sub parent-of ($frac) {
   my ($n, $d) = $frac.split: '/';
   ($n < $d ?? ($n, $d - $n) !! ($n - $d, $d)).join: '/';
}

It’s basically the same code, just a bit Raku-ized.

So… I hope I did read the challenge right! Anyway, stay safe everybody!