Framework for solving 🌟 Advent of Code 🎄

About · Usage · Contents · What is Advent of Code?

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🗣️ About

This framework was developed to automate repetitive tasks when solving 🌟 Advent of Code 🎄 puzzles, such as:

• creating the necessary files for solving the puzzles of a given day;
• downloading one's personal input;
• reading and formatting the input text;
• running the solving code for a given day, both for one's personal input and testing inputs;
• testing of multiple different inputs.

Future improvements include: opening of the webpage of a given day puzzle.

🛠️ Usage

Requirements

• Python 3.10
• termcolor
• make (for running Makefile)

Instructions

0. Git clone this repo into your AoC folder
1. Create the config.ini file
2. Create a new day folder from template
3. Fill in the input files
4. Write the solving code in the main.py file
5. Run the puzzle solver

0. Git clone this repo into your AoC folder

$ cd advent_of_code-2015/my_solutions
$ git clone https://github.com/appinha/aoc_framework.git

1. Create the config.ini file

To enable automated downloading of your personal input from the AoC website, your AoC folder must contain a config.ini file with the following content:

[aoc_settings]
year=2021
session_cookie=1234567890

The resulting folder structure should be:

my_solutions
  aoc_framework
    ...
  config.ini

Note: to get your session cookie, open the AoC website and log in to your account; open DevTools (inspect) and go to the "Application" tab; on the left menu, under "Storage", click on "Cookies", then on the AoC url; from the table, copy the value of the "session" entry.

2. Create a new day folder from template

Go into the cloned folder:

$ cd aoc_framework

and run:

$ make new day=01

Note: the make commands have to be run from the cloned folder's root, i.e. from where the Makefile is placed.

The resulting folder structure should be:

my_solutions
  aoc_framework
    ...
  config.ini
  day_01
    input_test.txt
    input.txt
    main.py
    README.md
    solutions.txt

3. Fill in the input files

For your personal input, upon creating a new day folder from template, it is automatically downloaded from the AoC website and pasted into the input.txt file.

If an error occurred while downloading your input upon creating the new day folder, you can try again with:

$ make input day=01

For testing inputs, add them in the input_test.txt file in substitution of the text INPUT and add the expected result in substitution of the ? character. The line <---> is used to separate inputs for a given puzzle part, while the line <===> separates inputs from each puzzle part. In the example below, there are 3 testing inputs for part 1 and 2 testing inputs for part 2:

2x3x4
:-> solution=58 <-:

<--->

1x1x10
:-> solution=43 <-:

<--->

2x3x4
1x1x10
:-> solution=101 <-:

<===>

2x3x4
:-> solution=34 <-:

<--->

1x1x10
:-> solution=14 <-:

(test inputs for AoC 2015 day 02 puzzle)

4. Write the solving code in the main.py file

The solving code for each part of the puzzle have to be written as the methods solve_part_1 and solve_part_2 of the DayPuzzleSolver class:

class DayPuzzleSolver():
    def __init__(self):
        self.delimiter = ""

    def solve_part_1(self, raw_input):
        ...

    def solve_part_2(self, raw_input):
        ...

The self.delimiter parameter determines how the text from the input file should be broken down. The result is then passed as the raw_input parameter of the solving methods. For example:

• "" (empty string) - the input text remains the same, i.e. raw_input will be a string containing the input text in whole.
• "\n" - to be used when the input should be broken down line by line, i.e. raw_input will be a list of strings (lines).
• "\n\n" - to be used when the input is written in blocks and should be broken down by so, i.e. raw_input will be a list of strings (blocks of lines).

5. Run the puzzle solver

for a certain day (both parts):

$ make day=02

for a certain day and part:

$ make day=04 part=1

$ make day=08 part=2

for testing input:

$ make test day=12

$ make test day=12 part=1

📑 Contents

• Makefile - used for duplicating the day template folder and running the solver script for a given day.

📂 day_template

• input_test.txt - text file containing input from tests given in the puzzle.
• input.txt - text file containing my personal input for the puzzle.
• main.py - Python class that implements the code for solving the puzzle.
• README.md - markup file containing a summary and link to the puzzle.
• solutions.txt - text file containing the solutions for my personal puzzle input.

📂 solver

• solve_day.py - script for running the solving code for a given day.
• timer.py - contains the class Timer used for timing the puzzle solving.

🌟 What is Advent of Code?

🚀 TLDR: an online event where a two-part programming puzzle is released each day from Dec 1st to the 25th.

Advent of Code is an online event created by Eric Wastl. In his words:

Advent of Code is an Advent calendar of small programming puzzles for a variety of skill sets and skill levels that can be solved in any programming language you like. People use them as a speed contest, interview prep, company training, university coursework, practice problems, or to challenge each other.

Source: https://adventofcode.com/about