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Day 10: Cathode-Ray Tube

code and article by Mewen Crespo (reviewed by Jamie Thompson)

Puzzle description​

https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/10

Solution​

Today's goal is to simulate the register's values over time. Once this is done, the rest falls in place rather quickly. From the puzzle description, we know there are two commands availaible: noop and addx. This can be implemented with a enum:

enum Command:
  case Noop
  case Addx(x: Int)

Now, we need to parse this commands from the string. This can be done using a for loop to match each line of the input:

import Command.*

def commandsIterator(input: String): Iterator[Command] =
  for line <- input.linesIterator yield line match
    case "noop" => Noop
    case s"addx $x" if x.toIntOption.isDefined => Addx(x.toInt)
    case _ => throw IllegalArgumentException(s"Invalid command '$line''")

Here you can use linesIterator to retrieve the lines (it returns an Iterator[String]) and mapped every line using a for .. yield comprehension with a match body. Note the use of the string interpolator s for a simple way to parse strings.

tip

Error checking: Althought not necessary in this puzzle, it is a good practice to check the validity of the input. Here, we checked that the string matched with $x is a valid integer string before entering the second case and throw an exception if none of the first cases were matched.

Now we are ready to compute the registers values. We choose to implement it as an Iterator[Int] which will return the register's value each cycle at a time. For this, we need to loop throught the commands. If the command is a noop, then the next cycle will have the same value. If the command is a addx x then the next cycle will be the same value and the cycle afterward will be x more. There is an issue here: the addx command generates two cycles whereas the noop command generates only one.

To circumvent this issue, generate an Iterator[List[Int]] first which will be flattened afterwards. The first iterator is constructed using the scanLeft method to yield the following code:

val RegisterStartValue = 1

def registerValuesIterator(input: String): Iterator[Int] =
  val steps = commandsIterator(input).scanLeft(RegisterStartValue :: Nil) { (values, cmd) =>
    val value = values.last
    cmd match
      case Noop => value :: Nil
      case Addx(x) => value :: value + x :: Nil
  }
  steps.flatten

Notice that at each step we call .last on the accumulated List[Int] value which, in this case, is the register's value at the start of the last cycle.

Part 1​

In the first part, the challenge asks you to compute the strength at the 20th cycle and then every 40th cycle. This can be done using a combination of drop (to skip the first 19 cycles), grouped (to group the cycles by 40) and map(_.head) (to only take the first cycle of each group of 40). The computation of the strengths is, on the other hand, done using the zipWithIndex method and a for ... yield comprehension. This leads to the following code:

def registerStrengthsIterator(input: String): Iterator[Int] =
  val it = for (reg, i) <- registerValuesIterator(input).zipWithIndex yield (i + 1) * reg
  it.drop(19).grouped(40).map(_.head)

The result of Part 1 is the sum of this iterator:

def part1(input: String): Int = registerStrengthsIterator(input).sum

Part 2​

In the second part, we are asked to draw a CRT output. As stated in the puzzle description, the register is interpreted as the position of a the sprite ###. The CRT iterates throught each line and, if the sprites touches the touches the current position, draws a #. Otherwise the CRT draws a .. The register's cycles are stepped in synced with the CRT.

First, the CRT's position is just the cycle's index modulo the CRT's width (40 in our puzzle). Then, the CRT draw the sprite if and only if the register's value is the CRT's position, one more or one less. In other words, if (reg_value - (cycle_id % 40)).abs <= 1. Using the zipWithIndex method to obtain the cycles' indexes we end up with the following code:

val CRTWidth: Int = 40

def CRTCharIterator(input: String): Iterator[Char] =
  for (reg, crtPos) <- registerValuesIterator(input).zipWithIndex yield
    if (reg - (crtPos % CRTWidth)).abs <= 1 then
      '#'
    else
      '.'

Now, concatenate the chars and add new lines at the required places. This is done using the mkString methods:

def part2(input: String): String =
  CRTCharIterator(input).grouped(CRTWidth).map(_.mkString).mkString("\n")

Final Code​

import Command.*

def part1(input: String): Int =
  registerStrengthsIterator(input).sum

def part2(input: String): String =
  CRTCharIterator(input).grouped(CRTWidth).map(_.mkString).mkString("\n")

enum Command:
  case Noop
  case Addx(x: Int)

def commandsIterator(input: String): Iterator[Command] =
  for line <- input.linesIterator yield line match
    case "noop" => Noop
    case s"addx $x" if x.toIntOption.isDefined => Addx(x.toInt)
    case _ => throw IllegalArgumentException(s"Invalid command '$line''")

val RegisterStartValue = 1

def registerValuesIterator(input: String): Iterator[Int] =
  val steps = commandsIterator(input).scanLeft(RegisterStartValue :: Nil) { (values, cmd) =>
    val value = values.last
    cmd match
      case Noop => value :: Nil
      case Addx(x) => value :: value + x :: Nil
  }
  steps.flatten

def registerStrengthsIterator(input: String): Iterator[Int] =
  val it = for (reg, i) <- registerValuesIterator(input).zipWithIndex yield (i + 1) * reg
  it.drop(19).grouped(40).map(_.head)

val CRTWidth: Int = 40

def CRTCharIterator(input: String): Iterator[Char] =
  for (reg, crtPos) <- registerValuesIterator(input).zipWithIndex yield
    if (reg - (crtPos % CRTWidth)).abs <= 1 then
      '#'
    else
      '.'

Run it in the browser​

Part 1​

Part 2​

Solutions from the community​

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