Ray Camden's Friday Puzzler Has Bested Me (For The Moment)!

Posted April 1, 2007 at 7:23 PM by Ben Nadel

Tags: ColdFusion

I was jam-packed with work on Friday so I didn't have a chance to get to Ray Camden's Friday puzzler. I thought I would have some time to whiz through it after work. I had the time... but I didn't have the whiz. What seemed like a decently hard problem became a very hard problem once I got into it. Two days later, I still do not have an answer.

The biggest trick to this puzzler is that is has to be non-destructive. Or rather, it has to be very specifically destructive. The goal was to replace 1-3 letters out of 10-15 randomly chosen words. That's it. No other content is supposed to be altered. So, why is this difficult:

  • You can only alter words NOT contained within the definition of a tag. This means you cannot alter tag names, tag attributes, or tag attribute values.
  • You have to know HOW many words there are before you can actually make a random choice.
  • You cannot alter any pre-existing white space as you never know if you are in a PRE tag or a TEXTAREA or some other tag where white space actually matters (hence the non-destructive alterations).

I am sure there is any easy solution that I am just not seeing. This test has bested me for the moment. I am not about to give up just yet. I still got some juice left in me. I will be victorious... just give me some time.


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Reader Comments

Raymond Camden
Apr 1, 2007 at 7:55 PM // reply »
304 Comments
1,938 Points

You know, these tests are _meant_ to take no more than 5 minutes. I may need to think a bit more next time. ;)


Ben Nadel
Apr 1, 2007 at 8:53 PM // reply »
10,640 Comments
69,065 Points

Almost done with a WAAAAY TOO COMPLICATED solution ;)

If it wasn't way to complicated and involved Java methods... what would be the fun in that???


Ben Nadel
Apr 1, 2007 at 9:42 PM // reply »
10,640 Comments
69,065 Points

@Ray,

Now I can rest happy :)

http://www.bennadel.com/index.cfm?dax=blog:615.view


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