Ray Camden's Friday Puzzler Has Bested Me (For The Moment)!
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.
Reader Comments
You know, these tests are _meant_ to take no more than 5 minutes. I may need to think a bit more next time. ;)
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???
@Ray,
Now I can rest happy :)
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