Write lines in detention

Question

Introduction

Bad news guys - you got detention. Your English teacher doesn't understand this site and wants you to "stop doing math on your digital dohickeys, this is English class!"

She sentenced you to write her favorite saying on the blackboard 25 times, which will give a total of 100 lines on the blackboard.

The eighteen-hundreds were a time for rum.
The nineteen-hundreds were a time for fun.
The two-thousands are a time to run
a civilized classroom.

Lucky for you, you are an avid reader (not to mention an expert code-golfer)! You have a read about a trick that might possibly get you off easy.

foxtrot

(Foxtrot by Bill Amend)

Unfortunately for Jason, it didn't work out. But you have a better idea! Since your English teacher thinks you're doing math, if you leave all the numbers out of your program it just might work! You also want to keep your program as short as possible because you are a lazy student and don't want to write a lot on the board.

Write a program that complies with the following rules:

Your program must print the 4 above lines 25 times. The lines must be outputted in that order, repeating. Total exactly 100 lines of output (a trailing newline at the very end or a leading newline at the very beginning is okay).
You cannot use the characters 0123456789. Your teacher gets confused by math and will call you out!
You can use any imports and external libraries without counting the imports. Your English teacher doesn't know about programming. Jason could have saved a lot of work by not writing #include <stdio.h> and you don't want to make his same mistakes!
Score your program by byte count. Lowest score wins!

If the text would've read "1900s", writing the output would've been slightly more tricky. — Ingo Bürk, Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 14:50
to the comix: he's not printing \n's, and the loop from 1 is pretty awkward (like against C nature)... — V-X, Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 15:41
@V-X Bill Amend is a long-time Pascal die-hard, and whenever he writes C that becomes pretty apparent. — fluffy, Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 18:09
Banning + would have made sense here, but maybe that would have been too difficult. — Pharap, Commented Oct 28, 2014 at 9:38

Community · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-17 09:04:33Z

76

JavaScript (ES6) 164

B='teen-hundreds were a time',alert(B.replace(/./g,
"The eigh"+B+" for rum.\nThe nine"+B+" for fun.\nThe two-thousands are a time to run\na civilized classroom.\n"))

Test In FireFox/FireBug console.

edited Jun 17, 2020 at 9:04

CommunityBot

1

answered Oct 23, 2014 at 17:07

edc65

32.2k3 gold badges36 silver badges90 bronze badges

19

\$\begingroup\$ This is genius! \$\endgroup\$
– Optimizer
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 17:09
1

\$\begingroup\$ Yup, replacing each character by the larger string. Making 25 copies of the larger string. \$\endgroup\$
– Optimizer
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 17:49
1

\$\begingroup\$ @Optimizer That is genius :) \$\endgroup\$
– FryAmTheEggman
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 17:49
3

\$\begingroup\$ @Malvolio In fact the repeated section is 30 characters. And I could show a huge sequence of attempts, adding and cutting words and replacing replaces before finding this simple solution. \$\endgroup\$
– edc65
Commented Oct 24, 2014 at 12:13
1

\$\begingroup\$ @IsmaelMiguel I think you mean any ES6 browser. Problem: at time this challenge was posted, template strings were not implemented in any browser: Firefox was the first - rel 34, dec first 2014 - then Chrome, march 2015. But even without template strings your scoure would be 153, better than mine. You should post it as an answer. \$\endgroup\$
– edc65
Commented Sep 27, 2015 at 20:03

| Show 12 more comments

Community · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-17 09:04:33Z

34

Python : 188 173 160 153

a="teen-hundreds were a time"
print"The eigh%s for rum.\nThe nine%s for fun.\nThe two-thousands are a time to run\na civilized classroom.\n"%(a,a)*len(a)

I don't python much, but this seems pretty short to me.

Edit: So I was wrong, it wasn't short at all! Thanks for the assistance in comments :D

edited Jun 17, 2020 at 9:04

CommunityBot

1

answered Oct 23, 2014 at 14:40

Geobits

19.7k4 gold badges55 silver badges125 bronze badges

1

\$\begingroup\$ You could lose the newline and indent on the for loop to save a couple of bytes. \$\endgroup\$
– Holloway
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 15:39
1

\$\begingroup\$ @Geobits, I make that 157 \$\endgroup\$
– Holloway
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 16:11
1

\$\begingroup\$ @Geobits are you running on a windows machine? The line encodings in windows are frequently \r\n instead of just \n. That might be why it's showing 157 bytes for us, but 160 for you. \$\endgroup\$
– Rob Watts
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 17:49
2

\$\begingroup\$ This is 160 only. You are probably skipping the three \ in \n due to escaping ... \$\endgroup\$
– Optimizer
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 17:51
1

\$\begingroup\$ You can move the value for b into the print: % has higher precedence than *. \$\endgroup\$
– FryAmTheEggman
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 19:22

| Show 14 more comments

Optimizer · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-25 14:26:19Z

29

CJam, 151 140 135 132 130 128 bytes (Tweetable)

"TeighYrum.TnineYfun.Ttwo-thousands are a time to run
a civilized classroom.""YT"["teen-hundreds were a time for ""
The "]erAF+*

Try it here

I am able to shorten this down to 110 bytes by converting this to unicode, but since that is not beating the other unicode solution, I would rather not put it :)

edited Oct 25, 2014 at 14:26

answered Oct 23, 2014 at 13:55

Optimizer

26.6k7 gold badges66 silver badges142 bronze badges

23

\$\begingroup\$ Hey, what's that :D emoticon doing there?! Are you texting your friends during detention? Go to the principal's office! \$\endgroup\$
– Doorknob
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 21:11
2

\$\begingroup\$ @Doorknob :D :P \$\endgroup\$
– Optimizer
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 21:16
\$\begingroup\$ Maybe you could make T alias to .\nThe , then remove the extra line that this produces from the start of the output string (my cjam-fu isn't good enough to figure out whether you can easily do that) \$\endgroup\$
– user16402
Commented Oct 24, 2014 at 7:21
\$\begingroup\$ @professorfish that ends up consuming more bytes than it saves. mothereff.in/…*%28Y%2F%28%40\ \$\endgroup\$
– Optimizer
Commented Oct 24, 2014 at 7:48
\$\begingroup\$ Nitpicking: Using the upper 128 bytes of an ASCII-compatible code page has nothing to do with Unicode. \$\endgroup\$
– Dennis
Commented Oct 25, 2014 at 16:39

Add a comment |

Community · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-17 09:04:33Z

25

PHP, 0 bytes

You can use any imports and external libraries without counting the imports.

To run this code, you must import a library called data://text/plain,<?php...classroom.\n"; with this:

<?php require_once 'data://text/plain,<?php
  for($i=ord("z");$i>ord("a");$i--)
    echo "The eighteen-hundreds were a time for rum.
The nineteen-hundreds were a time for fun.
The two-thousands are a time to run
a civilized classroom.
";'; ?>

And you must have allow_url_include enabled in your php.ini.

No more numbers or extensions, thanks to Dennis.

edited Jun 17, 2020 at 9:04

CommunityBot

1

answered Oct 24, 2014 at 11:13

jimmy23013

37k6 gold badges77 silver badges148 bronze badges

9

\$\begingroup\$ My first instinct was to yell something about loopholes, but since this answer is actually self-contained, I think this is a clever way of using PHP to exploit a loophole that has been created deliberately for Python answers. Since you're already cheating, you could just use require_once "data://text/plain,The eighteen-hundreds...";, which doesn't require sh, doesn't use numbers and is still 0 bytes. \$\endgroup\$
– Dennis
Commented Oct 24, 2014 at 16:36
10

\$\begingroup\$ I'll upvote this for creativity but I won't accept this one. \$\endgroup\$
– hmatt1
Commented Oct 25, 2014 at 16:52

Add a comment |

jmm · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-09 19:08:15Z

14

Ruby, 185 180 176 bytes

EDIT: String interpolation, thanks @britishtea

It's my first golf ever, and I'm not much of a Rubist (but I certainly love Ruby). Anyway, this is it (shortened, Doorknob's suggestion).

t=' were a time for '
s="The eighteen-hundreds#{t}rum.
The nineteen-hundreds#{t}fun.
The two-thousands are a time to run
a civilized classroom."
s.split.size.next.times{puts s}

edited Sep 9, 2015 at 19:08

answered Oct 23, 2014 at 16:03

jmm

2611 silver badge5 bronze badges

1

\$\begingroup\$ You can golf this down further by replacing some of the repeating words / word-groups with String interpolation. \$\endgroup\$
– britishtea
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 16:35
3

\$\begingroup\$ +1 for noticing there are (almost) 25 words in the string \$\endgroup\$
– Digital Trauma
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 21:52
2

\$\begingroup\$ s.split.size.next saves 5 characters (you don't need to specify the space to split on). \$\endgroup\$
– Doorknob
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 23:50
\$\begingroup\$ I don't know Ruby, but wouldn't (s.split.size+1).times be 1 byte shorter? \$\endgroup\$
– seequ
Commented Oct 25, 2014 at 20:54
1

\$\begingroup\$ @Sieg not allowed to use numbers! \$\endgroup\$
– rjdown
Commented Oct 26, 2014 at 2:31

| Show 1 more comment

Community · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-17 09:04:33Z

13

Java 249 231 230 222

My first answer! Why not start off using the language I know so well.

class c{public static void main(String[]g){for(int a='!';a++<':';out.println("The eighxrum.\nThe ninexfun.\nThe two-thousands are a time to run\na civilized classroom.".replaceAll("x","teen-hundreds were a time for ")));}}

Ungolfed

import static java.lang.System.*;
class c
{
    public static void main(String[]g)
    {
        for(int a='!';a++<':';out.println("The eighxrum.\nThe ninexfun.\nThe two-thousands are a time to run\na civilized classroom.".replaceAll("x","teen-hundreds were a time for ")));
    }
}

edited Jun 17, 2020 at 9:04

CommunityBot

1

answered Oct 23, 2014 at 15:23

Luminous

3091 silver badge6 bronze badges

9

\$\begingroup\$ Welcome! You can get rid of the public for your class and shorten args to a single character. You could also do a++<':' instead of incrementing it separately. Since the OP isn't counting imports, you can save a bit more with import static java.lang.System.*;, then you don't need to write System. later (where it counts). Doing that I got it down to around 230. You might want to take a look at the Java tips page if you haven't already. \$\endgroup\$
– Geobits
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 15:35
\$\begingroup\$ @Optimizer Thanks! I just didn't see the strikeout above. \$\endgroup\$
– Luminous
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 15:58
\$\begingroup\$ @Luminous NP :) \$\endgroup\$
– Optimizer
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 16:01
\$\begingroup\$ @Geobits Thank you! Apparently, you can also stick code right into the loop itself. Didn't add or remove anything, but I think it looks more golfed that way. \$\endgroup\$
– Luminous
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 16:02
4

\$\begingroup\$ Loop abuse is pretty common. If you had multiple statements in the body, you could put one on the outside and the rest inside to save a single character (since you need a semicolon outside anyway). A lot of golfs end up being one big loop that way. Also, "looks more golfed" is a totally valid reason to do anything even if it doesn't save :P \$\endgroup\$
– Geobits
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 16:05

| Show 2 more comments

V-X · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-23 14:42:28Z

11

C 171

a='a';b="teen-hundreds were a time for ";main(){for(;a++<'z';)printf("The eigh%srum.\nThe nine%sfun.\nThe two-thousands are a time to run\na civilized classroom.\n",b,b);}

At first, I tried the simplistic version (189 bytes), which was better than the other C solution...

main(a){for(a='a';a<'z';++a)printf("The eighteen-hundreds were a time for rum.\nThe nineteen-hundreds were a time for fun.\nThe two-thousands are a time to run\na civilized classroom.\n");}

which I later optimized a bit...

answered Oct 23, 2014 at 14:42

V-X

7194 silver badges11 bronze badges

1

\$\begingroup\$ Huh, that's nifty. I didn't realise static variables with string literals assigned to them implicitly have type char *. \$\endgroup\$
– FireFly
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 19:38
\$\begingroup\$ @FireFly GCC compiles fine on the a presumably because it defaults to int, which can accept a char value. It doesn't like b unless I call it a char[] though. V-X, what compiler are you using? \$\endgroup\$
– Level River St
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 20:17
\$\begingroup\$ b is int too but it holds the pointer to the string literal. It's completely ok in GCC (I have on my machine 4.8.2). \$\endgroup\$
– V-X
Commented Oct 24, 2014 at 6:51
1

\$\begingroup\$ for(a='a';++a<'z';) \$\endgroup\$
– seequ
Commented Oct 25, 2014 at 20:59

Add a comment |

Dennis · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-25 16:22:07Z

CJam, 109 107 106 104 103 bytes

0000000: 22 0c 20 4f 18 41 e4 d8 a5 f3 95 cf 5e 2b cb 1c  ". O.A......^+..
0000010: 44 64 2f bf 28 23 e2 47 4e 4e 77 73 fc 43 09 a2  Dd/.(#.GNNws.C..
0000020: 09 0b fb 18 29 e8 e8 49 5d fc 00 da b8 70 b6 3e  ....)..I]....p.>
0000030: 0c 24 d7 5a 5b 28 1c 45 2e 90 63 86 04 5c 3e 95  .$.Z[(.E..c..\>.
0000040: 4b ae 66 22 48 48 2a 62 46 47 2b 62 22 54 0a 20  K.f"HH*bFG+b"T. 
0000050: 2d 2e 22 27 7b 2c 57 25 7c 66 3d 7b 28 2f 29 2a  -."'{,W%|f={(/)*
0000060: 7d 5a 2a 43 44 2b 2a                             }Z*CD+*

The above is a reversible xxd dump.

Testing

You can generate and execute the above code by running this in the online interpreter:

"bxyyeighxrum.yninexfun.ytwo-thousands abto run
a civilized classroom.y
The xteen-hundreds webfor bre a time ""T
 -."'{,W%|f#31bHH*b:c`'\2*/'\*"HH*bFG+b""T
 -."`"'{,W%|f={(/)*}Z*CD+*"]:+~

To see the generated code (without executing it), remove the final ~.

To count the number of bytes (one character is one byte in ISO-8859-1), replace the final ~ with a ,.

Printable version (122 bytes)

"bxyyeighxrum.yninexfun.ytwo-thousands abto run
a civilized classroom.y
The xteen-hundreds webfor bre a time "{(/)*}Z*CD+*

After pushing the string (S), the following gets executed:

{    }Z*        " Repeat 3 times:     ";
 (              "     Q := S.shift()  ";
  /             "     T := S.split(Q) ";
   )            "     R := T.pop()    ";
    *           "     S := T.join(R)  ";
        CD+*    " S *= 12 + 13        ";

Moar golfing

After pushing the unprintable string (U), the following gets executed:

HH*b                        " U := U.base(17 * 17) ";
    FG+b                    " U := U.base(15 + 16) ";
        "T\n -."            " P := 'T\n -.'        ";
                '{,W%|      " P |= 'zyx...\0'      ";
                      f=    " U[i] -> P[U[i]]      ";

This pushes the string of the printable version. The rest of the code works as before.

Using the code, I get this generated code which is 144 bytes. Am I doing something wrong ? — Optimizer, Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 22:49
UTF-8 encoding would result in a higher byte count, yes. With ISO-8859-1, the byte count is 109. You can replace ~ with , to verify. — Dennis, Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 22:53
I got the exact result Optimizer did, but adding the ]:+~ made it work. Why don't you just add that to your code? — Luminous, Commented Oct 24, 2014 at 3:12
@user23013: The Java interpreter respects $LANG for I/O. Internally, CJam just has 16-bit chars. — Dennis, Commented Oct 24, 2014 at 11:37
You actually do not have to unicode-ize your solution as without compression itself it is only 124 bytes, beating all others. — Optimizer, Commented Oct 24, 2014 at 21:23

Optimizer · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-23 17:22:43Z

9

JavaScript, ES6, 174 172 154 bytes

Using @edc65's replace trick. Thanks!

alert((d="teen-hundreds were a time").replace(/./g,`The eigh${d} for rum.
The nine${d} for fun.
two-thousands are a time to run
a civilized classroom.
`))

Works only in latest Firefox (34 and above) due to use of template strings.

edited Oct 23, 2014 at 17:22

answered Oct 23, 2014 at 16:46

Optimizer

26.6k7 gold badges66 silver badges142 bronze badges

\$\begingroup\$ @Nijikokun You know that will cause 30 repetitions instead of 25, right ? \$\endgroup\$
– Optimizer
Commented Oct 24, 2014 at 20:45
\$\begingroup\$ I am guessing that ff 34 is beta or something since I am on latest (just checked) and it is 33 and it does not work on there \$\endgroup\$
– Sammaye
Commented Oct 28, 2014 at 16:12

Add a comment |

Kevin Brown-Silva · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-24 03:18:44Z

BrainFuck (1,597 characters)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++[>->-[--->+<]>-.[---->+++++<]>-.---.--[--->+<]>-.+[->+++<]>++.++++.--.+.++++++++++++.+++[->+++<]>..+++++++++.[----->++<]>+.[->++++++++<]>.[--->+<]>---.-------.----------.++++++++++++++.-------------.-.--[--->+<]>---.+[---->+<]>+++.--[->++++<]>-.[->+++<]>.+++++++++++++.-------------.--[--->+<]>-.[->+++<]>+.-[->+++<]>.---[->++++<]>.-----------.++++.--------.--[--->+<]>-.++[->+++<]>.+++++++++.+++.[-->+++++<]>+++.---[----->++<]>.+++.--------.+[----->++<]>++.>++++++++++.>-[--->+<]>-.[---->+++++<]>-.---.--[--->+<]>-.+[----->+<]>+.-----.+++++.---------.[--->+<]>---.+++[->+++<]>..+++++++++.[----->++<]>+.[->++++++++<]>.[--->+<]>---.-------.----------.++++++++++++++.-------------.-.--[--->+<]>---.+[---->+<]>+++.--[->++++<]>-.[->+++<]>.+++++++++++++.-------------.--[--->+<]>-.[->+++<]>+.-[->+++<]>.---[->++++<]>.-----------.++++.--------.--[--->+<]>-.++[->+++<]>.+++++++++.+++.[-->+++++<]>+++.++[->+++<]>.-[--->+<]>--.-------.[----->++<]>++.>++++++++++.>-[--->+<]>-.[---->+++++<]>-.---.--[--->+<]>-.---[->++++<]>.+++.--------.[->+++++<]>++.+[--->++<]>.------------.+++++++.++++++.--.++[->+++<]>++.+++++++++++++.----------.--[--->+<]>---.+[---->+<]>+++.[->+++<]>+.--[--->+<]>---.-------------.--[--->+<]>-.[->+++<]>+.-[->+++<]>.---[->++++<]>.-----------.++++.--------.--[--->+<]>-.---[->++++<]>.-----.[--->+<]>-----.---[----->++<]>.+++.-------.>++++++++++.--[--->++++<]>+.-[->+++<]>.+[->+++<]>.++++++.[->++++++<]>.[------>+<]>.+++.---.-[--->+<]>++.---[->+++<]>.-.-[--->+<]>-.+[->+++<]>.+++++++++.-----------.--[--->+<]>--..-.---..--.+[----->++<]>++.>++++++++++.[[-]<+]<-]

This can still be golfed further, if anyone is interested.

You can test this out and confirm that it gives the correct output while meeting all of the rules.

What's this? I told you to write sentences, not random squiggles! There aren't even any words in here! — Riking, Commented Oct 25, 2014 at 21:27
Ummm.. I think the goal is to use the fewest characters. You sure won the "anti-goal" :-) — Carl Witthoft, Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 12:01

hmatt1 · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-23 21:32:24Z

7

Perl - 145

I'm happy to see so many answers! Here's a Perl solution.

$s="teen-hundreds were a time for";print"The eigh$s rum.
The nine$s fun.
The two-thousands are a time to run
a civilized classroom.
"for b..z

edited Oct 23, 2014 at 21:32

answered Oct 23, 2014 at 17:08

hmatt1

3,4761 gold badge18 silver badges36 bronze badges

Add a comment |

Ryan Polley · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-27 15:53:19Z

7

Since she hates math so much, why not Mathematica (177)

   a = "teen-hundreds were a time for "; Do["The eigh" <> a <> "rum.
   The nine" <> a <> "fun.
   The two-thousands are a time to run a civilized classroom." // Print, {StringLength@a}]

answered Oct 27, 2014 at 15:53

Ryan Polley

1994 bronze badges

Add a comment |

Community · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-17 09:04:33Z

6

Javascript ES6, 198 193 bytes

m=Math;alert("The eighteen-hundreds were a time for rum.\nThe nineteen-hundreds were a time for fun.\nThe two-thousands are a time to run\na civilized classroom.\n".repeat(~~(m.exp(m.PI)+m.E)))

Your teacher doesn't want any numbers, but since they are an english teacher, they've got no clue what Math.floor(Math.exp(Math.PI)+Math.E) means.

C# - 229 216 Bytes

Free using FTW!

using c=System.Console;
class S{static void Main(){var a="teen-hundreds were a time";for(int b=a.Length,i=b-b;i++<b;)c.Write("The eigh"+a+" for rum.\nThe nine"+a+" for fun.\nThe two-thousands are a time to run\na civilized classroom.\n");}}

Alternative, same byte count (more usingabuse, though)

using i=System.Int32;
using c=System.Console;
class S{static void Main(){var a="teen-hundreds were a time";for(int b=new i();b++<a.Length;)c.Write("The eigh"+a+" for rum.\nThe nine"+a+" for fun.\nThe two-thousands are a time to run\na civilized classroom.\n");}}

edited Oct 23, 2014 at 23:26

answered Oct 23, 2014 at 16:30

William Barbosa

3,3872 gold badges21 silver badges41 bronze badges

4

\$\begingroup\$ ~~ (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ \$\endgroup\$
– William Barbosa
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 18:46
\$\begingroup\$ You can add " for " to a \$\endgroup\$
– FryAmTheEggman
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 19:01
\$\begingroup\$ @FryAmTheEggman the string is 25 characters long, he is using it to obtain the number 25 discretely. However, he can swap this method out for simply subtracting chars from each other (':'-'!' == 25), which is shorter than a.Length, and will allow for to be included as you suggest. (Alternativly, do as other answers seem to, and just loop between ! and :, funny how we all chose the same chars) \$\endgroup\$
– VisualMelon
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 19:47
\$\begingroup\$ @VisualMelon Whoops, you're totally right. \$\endgroup\$
– FryAmTheEggman
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 19:57
1

\$\begingroup\$ I thought I could since usings are not even being counted, has OP clarified this? \$\endgroup\$
– William Barbosa
Commented Oct 26, 2014 at 14:35

| Show 5 more comments

Kasran · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-05 01:24:37Z

Befunge-93, 268 260 256 (grid size: 72x6=432)

#v"K">:!#@_v>$"enin">,,,,::-" rof emit a erew sderdnuh neet">:#,_$::!!-#
, ,,,"The "<|\!\%-"\^"::%-" #":-!!:
   -"#-"-::$_ "hgie"^v1"two-thousands are a time to run"
$_$  "nuf"v"rum"
v1-"##",,,<      >:#,_"moorssalc dezilivic a"1
_# < ^,,\-"AK."$_,#!:

This is my first time golfing, so I figured I'd try a language that hadn't already been done for this problem, since I wouldn't be adding anything otherwise. Since it's Befunge-93 compatible (fits inside an 80x25 grid and uses only Befunge-93 instructions), it should work in Befunge-98 too. Just in case, I also avoided having the pointer pass over any non-instruction characters other than space. I couldn't remember whether the specification actually defined those characters as no-ops, and I'll be having no nasal demons in MY code.

You can't really ungolf Befunge code. The key thing to note here is that Befunge pushes characters to the stack as their ASCII values, making it relatively simple to refer to numbers without literally referring to them. The "K" in the top left is 75, referring to the number of repetitions times the number of "the" clauses per repetition; I use modulus and some other craftiness on (copies of) this number to determine which path to take through the printing on each go-around. ::- is a nice idiom for zero, useful for zero-terminating strings; I use it twice here.

On occasion the pointer needs to pass through a place where I'm defining a string, hence the specific choices of characters used to get certain numbers at some points.

The nice thing about a lot of Befunge interpreters is that you can watch the pointer dart around the grid, as well as see what values are in the stack. That way you can step through and see how the program works yourself, more or less! I'd recommend using http://befungius.aurlien.net/ if you don't have your own preferred Befunge interpreter.

This can probably be pared down a bit (or a lot) more. Please give me feedback! If I need to provide a better explanation, someone let me know; I'm new to this.

Edit - shaved off a few bytes by getting rid of the unnecessary redirect to the last row when the program terminates (just putting the @ where the ^ used to be).

Another edit - shaved off some more bytes in various places, mostly with trickery. (Also added the grid size, as seems to be the trend with Befunge answers.)

Hey Kasran welcome to the codegolf stack exchange! This answers look great. Your explanation is good and you linked to a Befunge interpreter which is really helpful for weird languages not everyone has a compiler for (people commonly do things like "run this here"). — hmatt1, Commented Oct 25, 2014 at 16:04
Befunge is a really hard language, and you have to keep the size of the code itself in your mind when writting. Your code looks great and works. But would it reduce the size if you save re a time somewhere? — Ismael Miguel, Commented Oct 25, 2014 at 16:26
I'm not using any Funge-98-specific instructions or behaviors that I know of, but since I wrote this answer I did learn that certain behaviors of the Befungius interpreter aren't standard - namely using # at one end of a line to skip the character at the other end (in CCBI, for instance, the # just skips the infinite space in between it and the character at the other end), which breaks this program. I haven't bothered to come back and fix this submission with this in mind. — Kasran, Commented Jan 17, 2017 at 18:42

Community · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-17 09:04:33Z

4

Pyth 135 136 140

*ltG%"The eigh%srum%snine%sfun%stwo-thousands are a time to run\na civilized classroom.\n"*hhZ("teen-hundreds were a time for "".\nThe

Note the trailing space.

Uses pretty much the same trick as @Geobits and his commenter friends in the Python answer to construct the string. Now also uses some of this answer.

This uses the built-in variable G, which contains abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz and gets one less than its length to produce the 25 outputs.

edited Jun 17, 2020 at 9:04

CommunityBot

1

answered Oct 23, 2014 at 16:46

FryAmTheEggman

17.5k3 gold badges40 silver badges97 bronze badges

1

\$\begingroup\$ This seems to be 136 bytes rather than 135 \$\endgroup\$
– Optimizer
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 17:05
1

\$\begingroup\$ @Optimizer Sorry, I should read my own notes: I forgot the trailing space when I pasted it there myself :S \$\endgroup\$
– FryAmTheEggman
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 17:18

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Mikey · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-23 23:27:04Z

4

Ruby - 152 141

puts"The eight#{e="een-hundreds were a time for "}rum.
The ninet#{e}fun.
The two-thousands are a time to run
a civilized classroom.
"*(?X-??)

http://repl.it/2Om/6

edited Oct 23, 2014 at 23:27

answered Oct 23, 2014 at 23:09

Mikey

1414 bronze badges

1

\$\begingroup\$ Clever use of 1.8's character literals! You might be able to use String#* to repeat the lines 25 times instead of Integer#times. \$\endgroup\$
– britishtea
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 23:12
\$\begingroup\$ @britishtea - worked a treat :) \$\endgroup\$
– Mikey
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 23:18
1

\$\begingroup\$ You could shave off a few more bytes by not assigning the lines first. The space between puts and a string literal is optional (puts"hi" is legal). \$\endgroup\$
– britishtea
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 23:20
\$\begingroup\$ Assigning e inside the interpolation is a nice touch. \$\endgroup\$
– Wayne Conrad
Commented Oct 24, 2014 at 12:26

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DJMcMayhem · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-23 19:17:38Z

3

Python, 165 bytes

h="hundreds were a time for "
t="The "
for i in h:print t+"eighteen-"+h+"rum.\n"+t+"nineteen-"+h+"fun.\n"+t+"two-thousands are a time to run\na civilized classroom."

It worked out really nicely that the length of h is 25, that was not intentional. =)

answered Oct 23, 2014 at 19:17

DJMcMayhem

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Community · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-17 09:04:33Z

3

Python 2 - 143

A silly answer:

from this import i
a="teen-hundreds were a time for ",".\nThe "
print"The eigh%srum%snine%sfun%stwo-thousands are a time to run\na civilized classroom.\n"%(a+a)*i

Note that the full count is 162. I left out all of from this import i.

Uses similar replacements to my pyth strategy, but I couldn't resist posting this after discovering the hilariousness of importing from this :)

edited Jun 17, 2020 at 9:04

CommunityBot

1

answered Oct 24, 2014 at 17:16

FryAmTheEggman

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\$\begingroup\$ +1 For use of from this import i! How did you know about that? \$\endgroup\$
– Beta Decay
Commented Oct 26, 2014 at 16:54
1

\$\begingroup\$ @BetaDecay I actually was bored and decided to read the zen of python, so I went to my interpreter and wrote import this. Then I thought: "What else could be in the this module?" So I called dir(this). Lo and behold, along with a dictionary, a garbled up string, and a "!" variable, there was a numeric constant... equal to 25. \$\endgroup\$
– FryAmTheEggman
Commented Oct 26, 2014 at 23:35

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Ismael Miguel · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-24 19:27:14Z

3

PHP (175 157 156 bytes; 152 with unix EOF):

Not the most golfed solution, but surely does the job and is smaller than some attempts.

Here is the code:

$a=a;$f='re a time';$r="teen-hundreds we$f for";while($a++<z)echo"The eigh$r rum.
The nine$r fun.
The two-thousands a$f to run
a civilized classroom.
";

Old version:

$a=a;while($a++!=z)echo"The eighteen-hundreds were a time for rum.
The nineteen-hundreds were a time for fun.
The two-thousands are a time to run
a civilized classroom.
";

This works because php cycles the chars, and we just check if it isn't z and stop.

(One curiosity is that when php reaches z, it then goes to aa.)

edited Oct 24, 2014 at 19:27

answered Oct 23, 2014 at 16:47

Ismael Miguel

7,9432 gold badges25 silver badges38 bronze badges

3

\$\begingroup\$ The general convention here is to count newlines as only one byte, unless perhaps your language is so stubborn it only accepts CRLF, which is not the case for PHP. \$\endgroup\$
– user344
Commented Oct 25, 2014 at 8:54

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Beta Decay · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-26 17:14:54Z

3

Python 2 - 155

Note: since control characters don't show on SE, I've replaced it with \x19.

a,b='\nThe ','teen-hundreds were a time for '
print(a+'eigh'+b+'rum.'+a+'nine'+b+'fun.'+a+'two-thousands are a time to run\na civilized classroom.')*ord('\x19')

Base 64 version:

YSxiPScKVGhlICcsJ3RlZW4taHVuZHJlZHMgd2VyZSBhIHRpbWUgZm9yICcKcHJpbnQoYSsnZWln
aCcrYisncnVtLicrYSsnbmluZScrYisnZnVuLicrYSsndHdvLXRob3VzYW5kcyBhcmUgYSB0aW1l
IHRvIHJ1bgphIGNpdmlsaXplZCBjbGFzc3Jvb20uJykqb3JkKCcZJyk=

edited Oct 26, 2014 at 17:14

answered Oct 23, 2014 at 17:13

Beta Decay

23.4k8 gold badges72 silver badges165 bronze badges

\$\begingroup\$ Regarding the import, I think you could save a bit with from string import * or however it's called in Python \$\endgroup\$
– FireFly
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 17:25
1

\$\begingroup\$ You can move "teen" into b. \$\endgroup\$
– FryAmTheEggman
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 18:48
2

\$\begingroup\$ You can remove the [] brackets in the first line, which implicitly creates a tuple and then unpacks it. \$\endgroup\$
– Doorknob
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 23:51
\$\begingroup\$ You can also move the ord('d')//len('aaaa') to before the string so you don't have to bracket it. \$\endgroup\$
– FryAmTheEggman
Commented Oct 24, 2014 at 0:20
1

\$\begingroup\$ @Dennis The OP's latest edit allows leading newlines. \$\endgroup\$
– Beta Decay
Commented Oct 25, 2014 at 14:25

| Show 1 more comment

score 3 · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-26 17:15:34Z

3

LiveScript - 181

p=(a,b)->"The #{a}teen-hundreds were a time for #b.\n"
each console.log,map (->(p \eigh \rum)+(p \nine \fun)+'The two-thousands are a time to run\na civilized classroom.'),[\A to\Y]

Required imports:

{each, map} = require 'prelude-ls'

If you want to run it under Node.js, install the LiveScript (not livescript) and prelude-ls packages from npm, replace alert with console.log and run lsc prog.ls, where prog.ls contains the program.

edited Oct 26, 2014 at 17:15

answered Oct 23, 2014 at 16:01

user344

13

\$\begingroup\$ See rules: "You cannot use the characters 0123456789" \$\endgroup\$
– Paul R
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 16:22
2

\$\begingroup\$ Nice catch, fixed. \$\endgroup\$
– user344
Commented Oct 24, 2014 at 10:48

Add a comment |

Emigna · Accepted Answer · 2019-04-16 09:43:58Z

3

05AB1E, 91 bytes

AgG“TheŸ¯een-““«Ã€à€…€º€‡ “©“ê¶m.“««“The¥Šteen-“®„ˆ¦.««“The‚•-““šä€™€…€º€„‡Ð“«“a–Ìized¬¸.“»

Try it online!

edited Apr 16, 2019 at 9:43

answered Apr 16, 2019 at 9:00

Emigna

53k5 gold badges43 silver badges162 bronze badges

\$\begingroup\$ 83 bytes \$\endgroup\$
– Kevin Cruijssen
Commented Jun 4, 2019 at 10:28

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MickyT · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-23 18:35:37Z

2

T-SQL: 206

Makes use of a cross join on five rows to generate 25 rows selecting the phrase. The line breaks are important for the output.

with c as(SELECT\ N FROM(VALUES(\),($),($),($),($))A(B))SELECT REPLACE('The eigh$rum.
The nine$fun.
The two-thousands are a time to run
a civilized classroom.','$','teen-hundreds were a time for ')FROM c a,c b

answered Oct 23, 2014 at 18:35

MickyT

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Community · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-17 09:04:33Z

2

Bash, 151 bytes

Pretty much a straight port of your own answer

t="teen-hundreds were a time for"
for i in {a..y};{
echo "The eigh$t rum.
The nine$t fun.
The two-thousands are a time to run
a civilized classroom."
}

edited Jun 17, 2020 at 9:04

CommunityBot

1

answered Oct 23, 2014 at 18:50

Digital Trauma

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FireFly · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-23 19:28:32Z

2

C, 196 chars

This isn't an easy task for good ol' C. Factoring out the "The %steen-hundreds ..." pattern saves me a whole two characters.

Whitespace for clarity, include not counted.

#include <stdio.h>
main(){
  for (char*p="The %steen-hundreds were a time for %s.\n",
           *s="The two-thousands are a time to run\na civilized classroom.",
           *q=p;
       *q++ - 'a';
       puts(s))
   printf(p,"eigh","rum"), printf(p,"nine","fun");
}

answered Oct 23, 2014 at 19:28

FireFly

7,28829 silver badges41 bronze badges

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britishtea · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-24 02:43:41Z

2

Ruby, 145

?K.upto(?c){puts"The eigh#{x="teen-hundreds we#{t="re a time "}for "}rum.
The nine#{x}fun.
The two-thousands a#{t}to run
a civilized classroom."}

Explanation

Use String#upto to print the lines 25 times. The range "K".."c" is 25 characters.
Use basic String interpolation to shorten the lines.

edited Oct 24, 2014 at 2:43

answered Oct 23, 2014 at 16:03

britishtea

1,1896 silver badges14 bronze badges

2

\$\begingroup\$ #{a="The "} is actually costing you more characters! #{a} is the same length as The \$\endgroup\$
– Mikey
Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 23:34

Add a comment |

Matthew Butterick · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-24 06:36:07Z

2

Racket 173

(let([x"teen-hundreds were a time for "])(for([z(+ #xa #xf)])(displayln(~a"The eigh"x"rum.\nThe nine"x"fun.\nThe two-thousands are a time to run\na civilized classroom."))))

Ungolfed:

(let ([x "teen-hundreds were a time for "])
  (for([z(+ #xa #xf)])
    (displayln (~a "The eigh"x"rum.\nThe nine"x"fun.\nThe two-thousands are a
     time to run\na civilized classroom."))))

answered Oct 24, 2014 at 6:36

Matthew Butterick

4012 silver badges6 bronze badges

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Ethiraric · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-24 11:08:44Z

C, 215 203 199 bytes

main(a){a<<='\xC'+'\xD';while(a>>=!!a)printf("The eighteen-hundreds were a time for rum.\nThe nineteen-hundreds were a time for fun.\nThe two-thousands are a time to run\na civilized classroom.\n");}

Ungolfed

main(a)
{
  a<<='\xC'+'\xD';
  while(a>>=!!a)
    printf("The eighteen-hundreds were a time for rum.\nThe nineteen-hundreds were a time for fun.\nThe two-thousands are a time to run\na civilized classroom.\n");
}

I used bit shifting to iterate without any number.

a<<='\xC'+'\xD' sets a to 0b1[25 zeros]

a>>=!!a shifts right one bit for each time we iterate the loop

Edit : a equals argc, so its value is already 1 when the program is run with no arguments. Changed a>>='\xB'-'\xA' to a>>=!!'\xA' which is 4 bytes shorter. Also the text was displayed only 24 times. Fixed it. Removed extra brackets in the while.

Edit 2: changed !!'\xA' to !!a. Seems to work and saves 4 bytes

\$\begingroup\$ You can use puts to save more bytes. \$\endgroup\$
– Spikatrix
Commented Jun 2, 2015 at 9:58 — Spikatrix, Commented Jun 2, 2015 at 9:58

Write lines in detention

Introduction

Write a program that complies with the following rules:

63 Answers 63

JavaScript (ES6) 164

Python : 188 173 160 153

CJam, 151 140 135 132 130 128 bytes (Tweetable)

PHP, 0 bytes

Ruby, 185 180 176 bytes

Java 249 231 230 222

C 171

CJam, 109 107 106 104 103 bytes

Testing

Printable version (122 bytes)

Moar golfing

JavaScript, ES6, 174 172 154 bytes

BrainFuck (1,597 characters)

Perl - 145

Javascript ES6, 198 193 bytes

C# - 229 216 Bytes

Befunge-93, 268 260 256 (grid size: 72x6=432)

Pyth 135 136 140

Ruby - 152 141

Python, 165 bytes

Python 2 - 143

PHP (175 157 156 bytes; 152 with unix EOF):

Python 2 - 155

LiveScript - 181

05AB1E, 91 bytes

T-SQL: 206

Bash, 151 bytes

C, 196 chars

Ruby, 145

Explanation

Racket 173

C, 215 203 199 bytes

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