'Add' up the letters in a word

Question

My dad is a retired teacher, and he used to give combined spelling and math quizzes, where the student would spell a word, and then 'score' the word by adding up the letters, where a=1, b=2, etc. (e.g. cat = 3+1+20=24). This made grading the quizzes easier, as he would just have to check for incorrect 'scores' rather than incorrectly spelled words, and had the added benefit of testing 2 skills at once.

He hired a friend of mine to write a program that would score words for him, so he could generate lengthy answer keys without error. This problem is inspired by that program.

Requirements:

1. Accept any word with uppercase and lowercase letters
2. Return an error for any special characters, i.e. spaces, hyphens, @^%# etc.
3. a=1, b=2,... and A=1, B=2,...
4. Print the score of the word
5. (Optional) check that the word is in a dictionary after scoring, and print a warning if it is not.
6. No importing an external letter->number dictionary. You must generate it yourself.

Any language is acceptable. This is similar to the 'digital root battle,' but much simpler.

Answer 1

Ruby, 43 characters

$_=gets.upcase;p~/[^A-Z]/?_: $_.sum-64*~/$/

The error message this generates isn't exactly helpful, though. Both solutions posted here assume the input has no trailing linebreak, so to test them, use echo -n.

Ruby, 76 characters with dictionary check

l=STDIN.gets;$_=l.upcase;p~/[^A-Z]/?_: $_.sum-64*~/$/;[*$<].index(l)||$><<?W

The warning message consists of the single character "W". The path to the dictionary has to be supplied via ARGV. Example usage:

$ echo -n asd | ruby addletters.rb /usr/share/dict/words
24
W
$ echo -n cat | ruby addletters.rb /usr/share/dict/words
24

Answer 2

Golfscript - 23 chars

0\{.31&.(.26%=@64///+}/

Ensure there are no trailing newlines in input (e.g. use echo -n).

Answer 3

Python (65 64)

print sum(['',ord(i)-64]['@'<i<'[']for i in raw_input().upper())

This raises an error if the word contains non-letter characters, but not a helpful or informative one. (Edit: tip of the hat to st0le for the indexing trick.)

Answer 4

Python 2.6 (72 Chars) Without dictionary check

print sum(map(" abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz".index, raw_input().lower()))

Python 2.6 (178 Chars*) With dictionary check

w=raw_input().lower()
print sum(map(" abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz".index, w))
if w not in open('/usr/share/dict/american-english').read().split():
 print('Word not in dictionary')

_{*Can be lowered to 156 with a less helpful error message. :-)}

Thanks to all commenters for helping improve this.

Answer 5

Python (80)

w=raw_input().lower()
s=0
for l in w:s+=range(97,123).index(ord(l))+1
print s

Python v2 (65 but char ` will get accepted)

print sum(map(range(96,123).index,map(ord,raw_input().lower())))

v3 (60 chars, @ will be accepted but not counted, thanks jloy)

print sum(map(range(64,91).index,map(ord,input().upper())))

Answer 6

Scala: 59 chars, 7 of them payload, no dict:

(0/:"Payload".map(c=>if(c.isLetter)(c-'A')%32 else-999))(_+_)
67

No dictionary so far. Negative result means: Negative!

(0/:"Pay!wall?".map(c=>if(c.isLetter)(c-'A')%32 else-999))(_+_)   
-1915

Handles German Umlaute gracefully, by the way:

(0/:"Müllrößchen".map(c=>if(c.isLetter)(c-'A')%32 else-999))(_+_)
155

Answer 7

Java + Google Guava libraries, 347 characters, with dictionary check

Unreadable 1 long string version :-)

import java.io.*;import com.google.common.base.*;import com.google.common.io.*;class C{public static void main(String[]a)throws Exception{int s=0;for(int c:a[0].toUpperCase().toCharArray()){assert(c>64&&c<91);s+=c-64;}String d=Files.toString(new File(a[1]),Charsets.UTF_8);if(StringUtils.containsIgnoreCase(d,a[0]))System.out.println("w");System.out.println(s);}}

Human-readable version (sort of :-))

import java.io.*;

import com.google.common.base.*;
import com.google.common.io.*;

class C {
    public static void main(String[] a) throws Exception {
        int s=0;

        for(int c : a[0].toUpperCase().toCharArray()) {
            System.out.println(c);
            assert(c > 64 && c < 91);
            s += c - 64;
        }

        String d = Files.toString(new File(a[1]), Charsets.UTF_8);

        if (d.contains(a[0])) System.out.println("w");

        System.out.println(s);
    }
}

The dictionary path is now passed in via a[1], for assertions to work you have to use the -eaflag (+3 more chars). As for the dictionary, the dict /usr/share/dict/words (should be available on most *nix systems) has been used.

Answer 8

Python 3, 95 chars with dictionary

d=input().lower()
print(d in open("d").read()and sum(['',ord(c)-96]['`'<c<'{']for c in d)or'f')

The dictionary has to be in a file called d.

Python 3, 61 without dictionary, but stolen idea

print(sum(['',ord(c)-96]['`'<c<'{']for c in input().lower()))

Answer 9

VB.NET, 84 82 73 71

Console.Write(Console.ReadLine.Sum(Function(c)Asc(Char.ToUpper(c))-64))

Edit: With validation is:

Dim r=Console.ReadLine
Console.Write(If(r.All(AddressOf Char.IsLetter),r.Sum(Function(c)Asc(Char.ToUpper(c))-64),"Invalid input."))

129 characters. In which case:

C#, 118

var r=Console.ReadLine();Console.Write(r.All(char.IsLetter)?r.Sum(c=>char.ToUpper(c)-64).ToString():"Invalid input.");

Answer 10

Improving slightly on John's answer: Python (90)

s=0
for i in raw_input().lower():
 s+=("abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz".index(i)+1)
print(s)

Answer 11

Erlang, 104

a()->
a(string:to_lower(io:get_line([])),0).
a([_|[]],S)->
S;
a([C|R],S) when C<${, C>=$`->
a(R,S+C-$`).

Answer 12

Perl (52) (48)

golfed even more thanks to Timwi

perl -lpe "($w=uc)=~/[^A-Z]/&¨$w=~s/./$_-=64-ord$&/ge"

Answer 13

Golfscript - 39 chars

n%~{.96>{96}{64}if-..26>\0<|{0/}*}%{+}*

The error it throws is not exactly the best, but hey, it aborts execution.

Answer 14

PYTHON 62 68* Characters

print sum(map(chr,range(65,91)).index(c)+1 for c in input().upper())

Requires user to input strings using quotes, and is not safe (input executes code), but, as I said in a comment to another post, "user-friendly" and "not a security risk" ain't in the spec!

---

_{* I forgot about print, dammit.}

Answer 15

Husk, 17 bytes

?osṁo%32c¹¨eŻ→¨Λ√

Try it online!

Returns 'error' for invalid input, score of word otherwise.

?              Λ√       # if every element is a letter
 os                     # return the string of
   ṁ    c¹              # the sum of all their ASCII values
    o%32                # MOD 32
          ¨eŻ→¨         # otherwise, return the compressed string
                        # "error"

---

If it's acceptable to return '0' as the 'error' for invalid input, we can have a 11 byte 10 byte 9 byte solution:

§&ṁ%32Πm√

Answer 16

05AB1E, 15 bytes

lvAyk>})D0åi0ëO

Try it online! Returns 0 on error.

lvAyk>})D0åi0ëO  # full program
 v               # for y in...
                 # implicit input...
l                # lowercased...
    k            # push 0-based index of...
   y             # y...
    k            # in...
  A              # the lowercase alphabet...
    k            # or -1 if not found...
     >           # plus 1
      }          # end loop
           i     # if...
         0       # 0...
          å      # is in...
       )         # stack...
            0    # push 0
             ë   # else...
              O  # push sum...
        D        # of stack
                 # implicit output

Answer 17

Ruby 1.9, 69

w=gets.chop.upcase
w[/[^A-Z]/]&&fail
p w.bytes.inject(0){|s,b|s+b-64}

Answer 18

Perl (71)

($a)=lc<>;$a=~/[^a-z]/i&&die;$x+=ord$_ for split//,$a;die$x-96*length$a;

Answer 19

GolfScript, 50(53)

Gives an error on bad characters, but not a very good one (50 characters):

);[{""123,97>+91,65>+?}/].-1?0<{{26%1+}%{+}*}{@}if

Gives "E" on error instead (53 characters):

);[{""123,97>+91,65>+?}/].-1?0<{{26%1+}%{+}*}{;"E"}if

The alphabet-generating snippet 123,97>+ is stolen from Ventero .

Answer 20

J (55)

+/64-~-&32`]@.(<&97)`_:@.(<&65)`_:@.(>&122)"0,I.a.&e."0

This satisfies all the conditions except the dictionary one. As an error condition, it returns "infinity" (the underscore symbol in J) for words that contain anything but letters.

Answer 21

Haskell (127)

(raises an error on weird characters)
(also: the space between toUpper. and \x is needed otherwise it parses it as(toUpper) .\ (x))

import Char
main=getLine>>=putStrLn.show.sum.(map$(-65+).ord.toUpper. \x->if x`elem`['A'..'Z']++['a'..'z']then x else error"")

Haskell (70)

(does not raise an error, but 45% shorter)

import Char
main=getLine>>=putStrLn.show.sum.(map$(-65+).ord.toUpper)

Answer 22

C++ (111 107)

void main(){int a=0;s8*b=new s8[99];for(cin>>b;*b;)if(isalpha(*b))a+=tolower(*b++)-96;else return;cout<<a;}

---

The "set up"/etc:

#include <iostream>
#include <cstdio>
#include <cctype>

#ifdef _MSC_VER
    typedef __int8 s8;
#else
    typedef signed char s8;
#endif

---

"Undefined" behavior (It's more 'bad practice' than 'undefined', but oh well):

• void main() That says it all.
• I'm using new without delete.

Answer 23

Jelly, 10 9 bytes

ŒuØAiⱮoµS

Try it online!

Seemingly, it turns out a byte shorter to actually error than to return 0.

Œu           Uppercase the input,
    i        find the index (or 0 if not found)
     Ɱ       of each letter from the input
  ØA         in "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ",
      o      replace any 0 with the corresponding character of the input,
       µS    then take the sum.

Jelly errors if it attempts to add integers and strings together, and although two strings can be added together by +, this still errors in the case of a fully symbolic input because S is defined specifically as a reduce starting from zero.

Answer 24

JavaScript 1.8, 80 chars

Surprisingly readable!

alert(Array.reduce(prompt().toLowerCase(),function(a,b)a+b.charCodeAt(0)-96,0))

Answer 25

APL (34)

+/{⍵∊⍳26:⍵}¨{64-⍨A-32×96<A←⎕UCS⍵}⍞

Gives either the score, or a VALUE ERROR if there are non-alphabetic characters in the input.

Explanation:

• ⍞: read a line of input
• {...}: function applied to every character of input
• A←⎕UCS⍵: store the ASCII value of the current character in A
• A-32×96<A: make character uppercase: from A is subtracted 32 if 96<A (so, if it's uppercase), otherwise 0
• 64-⍨: subtract 64 from this, giving A=1, B=2 ...
• ¨: apply this function to every character:
• ⍵∊⍳26: if the character is between 1 and 26...
• :⍵: then return ⍵ (and since there's no else clause there will be a VALUE ERROR if it's not between 1 and 26)
• +/: sum all the values together (and this value is automatically outputted because it's the final result).

Answer 26

JavaScript, 60 bytes

s=>[...s.toUpperCase()].reduce((a,b)=>a+b.charCodeAt()-64,0)

If the program must return an error on invalid inputs, then 80 bytes:

s=>/[^a-z]/i.test(s)?_:[...s.toUpperCase()].reduce((a,b)=>a+b.charCodeAt()-64,0)

If an input is invalid, then the console will say that _ is not defined (there must not already be a variable defined called _).

Answer 27

Python 3, 58 55

print(sum(ord(x)%32for x in input()if x.isalpha()or z))

without dictionary or stolen idea but still unhelpful error ;)

thx @Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ

Test here.

Answer 28

C, 98 bytes

 int a(char *s){int b=0;while(*s){if(!isalpha(*s))throw 1;b+=(toupper(*(s++))-64);}printf("%d",b);}

Answer 29

F# (no validation) 79 57 chars

let a w=w|>Seq.fold(fun a b->a+(int b)-65)0|>printfn"%i"

Answer 30

C# with validation: 108 chars (with 12 for error message):

var s=Console.ReadLine();Console.Write(s.All(Char.IsLetter)?s.Sum(x=>x&'_'-'@').ToString():"Invalid input");

C# without validation: 60 53 chars:

Console.Write(Console.ReadLine().Sum(x=>x&'_'-'@'));