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.


You Might Also Be Interested In:



Reader Comments

Raymond Camden
Apr 1, 2007 at 7:55 PM // reply »
319 Comments
2,100 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 »
11,246 Comments
75,418 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 »
11,246 Comments
75,418 Points

@Ray,

Now I can rest happy :)

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


Post A Comment

Comment Etiquette: Please do not post spam. Please keep the comments on-topic. Please do not post unrelated questions or large chunks of code. And, above all, please be nice to each other - we're trying to have a good conversation here.

Please review the following issues:

Author Name:
Author Email:
Author Website:
Comment:
Supported HTML tags for formatting: <strong>bold</strong>   <em>italic</em>   <code>code</code>







  • Help Wanted - Find Your Next ColdFusion Job
Ben Nadel's Company - Epicenter Consulting Recent Blog Comments
Muhammadibn
May 24, 2013 at 9:11 AM
Preventing Links In Standalone iPhone Applications From Opening In Mobile Safari
@Brandon, Hi, No, I haven't been able to do that. I have just kept it as it is. ... read »
Brandon
May 23, 2013 at 9:52 PM
Preventing Links In Standalone iPhone Applications From Opening In Mobile Safari
@Muhmmadibn Did you figure out a solution to launching PDFs? I am running into the same issues myself. There is no way to close the PDF or go back once you launch it. Thanks in advance! ... read »
Dr Amadi
May 23, 2013 at 6:06 PM
The Girl Who Broke My Heart, And Made Me A Better Person
Good day,ladies and gentle men, my name is Dr AMADI the great spell caster in Africa, i have help so many people for different kind of problems,who say there is no solution to problems on earth, that ... read »
Ben Nadel
May 23, 2013 at 4:26 PM
ColdFusion QueryAppend( qOne, qTwo )
@Heather, Glad people are still getting value out of this! ... read »
Ben Nadel
May 23, 2013 at 3:49 PM
Strange Interaction Between DeserializeJson(), ArrayContains(), And Database Values In ColdFusion
@WebManWalking, I meant the code at the bottom (not the video). I did try to experiment with an intermediary variable, like: value = users.id[ i ]; arrayContains( userIDs, value ); ... but t ... read »
WebManWalking
May 23, 2013 at 11:06 AM
Strange Interaction Between DeserializeJson(), ArrayContains(), And Database Values In ColdFusion
@Ben, Are you talking about As Number: YES As String: YES As Java: YES? If so, that's with 3 different ways of referencing the constant 1, not users.id[1]. Query object references(*) are what seem ... read »
Ben Nadel
May 23, 2013 at 9:55 AM
Strange Interaction Between DeserializeJson(), ArrayContains(), And Database Values In ColdFusion
@Dan, According to the CF Admin, I'm running Java "1.6.0_45". As far as the DB column, in the database it's an INT. I'll see if I can dig into what CF sees it as. @WebManWalking, But h ... read »
WebManWalking
May 23, 2013 at 9:49 AM
Strange Interaction Between DeserializeJson(), ArrayContains(), And Database Values In ColdFusion
@Ben, I think the problem is that we're used to loose typing in ColdFusion, like JavaScript. If a value is a number but it's needed in an expression to be a string, noooo problem. I've encountered ... read »
InVision App - Prototyping Made Beautiful With Prototyping Tools