Spam Masker Challenge Tips

Rules:

• You shouldn't use a standard library function.

• You should only solve the challenge by manipulating the bytes directly.

• Manipulate the bytes of a string using indexing, slicing, appending etc.

• Be efficient: Do not use string concat (+ operator).

  • Instead, create a new byte slice as a buffer from the given string argument.
  • Then, manipulate it during your program.
  • And, for once, print that buffer.

• Mask only links starting with http://

• Don't check for uppercase/lowercase letters

  • The goal is learning how to manipulate bytes in strings, it's not about creating the perfect masker.

  • For example: A spammer can prevent the masker like this (for now this is OK):

    "Here's my spammy page: hTTp://youth-elixir.com"
                             ^^
    

• But, you should catch this:

  INPUT:
  Here's my spammy page: http://hehefouls.netHAHAHA see you.
  
  OUTPUT:
  Here's my spammy page: http://******************* see you.
  

Steps:

1. Check whether there's a command line argument or not. If not, quit from the program with a message.

2. Create a byte buffer as big as the argument.

3. Loop and detect the http:// patterns

4. Copy the input character by character to the buffer

5. If you detect http:// pattern, copy the http:// first, then copy the *s instead of the original link until you see whitespace character.

   For example:

   INPUT:
   Here: http://www.mylink.com Click!
   
   OUTPUT:
   Here: http://************** Click!
   

6. Print the buffer as a string