Author Topic: Programming Challenge - Make that Table!  (Read 4610 times)

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Offline alberthrocks

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Programming Challenge - Make that Table!
« on: May 29, 2014, 09:28:28 pm »
UPDATE: Specifics and clarifications can be found here.

Here's something that came up at work today. Seemingly simple, but it's a lot more complicated than it looks! (At least for me, heh...) I've came up with a solution already, so try it out!

Give it a try:
http://pastebin.com/FWLmveKF

The challenge (if you can't access the above):
=====================
= Make That Table!  =
=====================
CHALLENGE:
Using any programming language, write a program that takes the following INPUT and converts it into a valid table OUTPUT.
Input represents any table, space-delimited. The first line is the table header, and the second line is the table secondary header.
 
Output must be based on the input. Display statements of the final result without any steps to get to the final results will be disqualified.
 
=======================================================================
= INPUT:                                                              =
=======================================================================
Hoooligans!  Party Animals Count    Alpha_Delta           Rounded   First
                                                                    Second          Third
       1234        12.4562294932        12.4958  193583.149592983    28592      2948502.5
   39502050     104.682950380298     193.499499  19384885444.2223  1234567         123592
 
=======================================================================
= OUTPUT:                                                             =
=======================================================================
Hoooligans! | Party Animals Count |   Alpha_Delta |          Rounded |  First  |
===============================================================================================
            |                     |               |                  |  Second |         Third
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
       1234 |       12.4562294932 |       12.4958 | 193583.149592983 |   28592 |     2948502.5
   39502050 |    104.682950380298 |    193.499499 | 19384885444.2223 | 1234567 |        123592
« Last Edit: May 29, 2014, 11:05:08 pm by alberthrocks »
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Offline Runer112

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Re: Programming Challenge - Make that Table!
« Reply #1 on: May 29, 2014, 10:42:15 pm »
What kind of restrictions are there on input format? Will the table always be nicely spaced already? Will every data cell contain a number? Will there always be at least one row of data?

And how about the output format? Can we pad lines to the end with spaces? Should there be precisely no extra table width on the left but one character of extra table width on the right, as in your example?

Offline alberthrocks

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Re: Programming Challenge - Make that Table!
« Reply #2 on: May 29, 2014, 11:02:38 pm »
What kind of restrictions are there on input format? Will the table always be nicely spaced already? Will every data cell contain a number? Will there always be at least one row of data?

And how about the output format? Can we pad lines to the end with spaces? Should there be precisely no extra table width on the left but one character of extra table width on the right, as in your example?
Sorry for the lack of specificity.

You can assume the following:
  • Everything is right-justified and well spaced. A human can easily distinguish the columns.
  • Assume that there will always be a header (first line) and a sub-header (second line).
  • You can safely assume that every value cell (third line and down) will be filled.
  • There will always be rows of data, but consider only using the first few, since the actual data could be thousands of lines long.
  • As for output, the table I made was just a quickly done table to show how it could look like. The main goal of this challenge is to show that you are able to map the header and subheader to the column data below. Therefore, the output needs to show that you are successful in doing so. A simple table will do, or even a CSV that can easily be imported to Excel.

Hope that helps (and makes it easier)! Feel free to ask any more questions as necessary!

Oh, and here's proof of solution (when it eventually gets posted):
Solution hash: 4ff5917ff0f821103799498d79a4c70665eb8a68f3b6cf715986c93d3db9e2a6
Verifiable here

EDIT: Updated pastebin with specifics above!
« Last Edit: May 29, 2014, 11:04:20 pm by alberthrocks »
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Offline Runer112

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Re: Programming Challenge - Make that Table!
« Reply #3 on: May 30, 2014, 08:58:07 am »
Is the purpose of this precisely to make an ASCII table? Or is it simply to convert the data into a more standard tabular format? Because you mentioned that converting it to CSV that can be imported into Excel would suffice, but I would like to point out that the input data can be imported into Excel just fine as-is, in which case my solution would be to do nothing. :P

Offline alberthrocks

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Re: Programming Challenge - Make that Table!
« Reply #4 on: May 30, 2014, 07:08:21 pm »
Is the purpose of this precisely to make an ASCII table? Or is it simply to convert the data into a more standard tabular format? Because you mentioned that converting it to CSV that can be imported into Excel would suffice, but I would like to point out that the input data can be imported into Excel just fine as-is, in which case my solution would be to do nothing. :P
True true...  yeah, the point of it is to figure out which columns represent which data, aka successfully parse the input table. So either would work as long as they are generated from scratch. :)
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Activity remains limited due to busyness from school et al. Sorry! :( Feel free to PM, email, or if you know me well enough, FB me if you have a question/concern. :)

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Spoiler For "My Projects! :D":
Projects:

Computer/Web/IRC Projects:
C______c: 0% done (Doing planning and trying to not forget it :P)
A_____m: 40% done (Need to develop a sophisticated process queue, and a pretty web GUI)
AtomBot v3.0: 0% done (Planning stage, may do a litmus test of developer wants in the future)
IdeaFrenzy: 0% done (Planning and trying to not forget it :P)
wxWabbitemu: 40% done (NEED MOAR FEATURES :P)

Calculator Projects:
M__ C_____ (an A____ _____ clone): 0% done (Need to figure out physics and Axe)
C2I: 0% done (planning, checking the demand for it, and dreaming :P)

Offline alberthrocks

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Re: Programming Challenge - Make that Table!
« Reply #5 on: June 01, 2014, 02:00:21 pm »
Bump bump! Anyone find a solution yet? :D
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Activity remains limited due to busyness from school et al. Sorry! :( Feel free to PM, email, or if you know me well enough, FB me if you have a question/concern. :)

Don't expect me to be online 24/7 until summer. Contact me via FB if you feel it's urgent.


Proud member of ClrHome!

Spoiler For "My Projects! :D":
Projects:

Computer/Web/IRC Projects:
C______c: 0% done (Doing planning and trying to not forget it :P)
A_____m: 40% done (Need to develop a sophisticated process queue, and a pretty web GUI)
AtomBot v3.0: 0% done (Planning stage, may do a litmus test of developer wants in the future)
IdeaFrenzy: 0% done (Planning and trying to not forget it :P)
wxWabbitemu: 40% done (NEED MOAR FEATURES :P)

Calculator Projects:
M__ C_____ (an A____ _____ clone): 0% done (Need to figure out physics and Axe)
C2I: 0% done (planning, checking the demand for it, and dreaming :P)