Compress and decompress

Question

Your task is to make a bidirectional compressor. It takes a list of bytes as input and returns a list of bytes as output. It has the property than whenever it is iterated twice it returns the original input.

In other words, if f is your program as a function, then f(f(x))=x for all x.

Now, since this is a "compressor", it should actually try to compress it's input. Of course, it can't compress every input. It should however be able to compress your program's source code. That is, if s is your program's source code, then len(f(s))<len(s).

To recap, your program acts as a function that takes a list of bytes as input and outputs a list of bytes as output. Let's call your program f and it's source code s. Your program must satisfy both:

• f(f(x)) = x for all x
• len(f(s)) < len(s)

Remember that the empty list is a list, and thus your code should be able to handle it.

Normal quine rules apply, so no introspection is allowed (opening the file that contains your source code, etc.).

Shortest code wins!

Answer 1

JavaScript (ES6), 26 bytes

-1 thanks to @thejonymyster

-7 thanks to @Arnauld

-4 thanks to @l4m2

x=>x.replace(/-2|1/,z=>~z)

Swaps the first instance of -2 and 1, saving 1 byte when the program compresses itself. Takes the list of bytes as input, as a string.

This is quite the community effort now :p

Answer 2

R, 102 59 bytes

function(x)`if`(nchar(x)%%2,sub("#$","",x),sub("$","#",x))#

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f() removes any trailing # comment character if there are an odd number of characters in the input (as in myprog), or adds one if there are an even number.

(Removing the first f would also work, and is 1-byte shorter, but it's less satisfying as the 'compressed' function is no longer a runnable compression function itself...)

Answer 3

C (gcc), 49 bytes

A;f(char*s){s[-1]=65;A=s[A=*s==65]-59?s:s-1+A*2;}

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Surculose Sputum's idea

C (gcc), 55 54 52 bytes

A;f(char*s){A=*s-(s[-1]=65)?s-1:*++s-65?s:f(s+1)-2;}

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Thank gastropner for -2 bytes

Requires s[-1] be writable

Answer 4

Zsh, 35 bytes

printf %s ${1/(#m)(-3|2)/$[~MATCH]}

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Previous version independently discovered to l4m2's golf to Redwolf's answer, goddamn ninjas! (now just a lazy port :/)

Swaps the first instance of -3 for 2 and vice versa.

Answer 5

APL (Dyalog Unicode), 37 bytes

'¯2|1'⎕R{⍕83⎕Dr~11⎕Dr⍎⍵.Match}⍠'ML'1⊢

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Same thing as everyone else here has done replaces ¯1 with 1 and vice versa

and it works this time for sure :D

Answer 6

Retina 0.8.2, 18 bytes

1`-1|(2)
$#1$*-$.&

Try it online! Explanation: Port of @RedwolfPrograms' JavaScript answer.

1`

Only replace the first match.

-1|(2)

Match -1 or 2.

$#1$*-

Output - only if 2 was matched.

$.&

Output the length of the match.

Answer 7

Haskell, 54 bytes

f('l':')':l)='!':l;f('!':l)="l)"++l;f(x:l)=x:f l;f_=[]

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Switches the first occurrence of l) and !.

Answer 8

Python 3, 48 bytes

Thanks @AnttiP for pointing out the error in a previous version.

lambda s:['l'+s,s[1:],s][('l'+s[:2]).find('la')]

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Takes in a string and compress/decompress it.

• If the input starts with a, prepends l
• If the input starts with la, then remove the first character l.
• Otherwise, returns the input unchanged

('l'+s[:2]).find('la') evaluates to 0, 1, -1 for each of the above case respectively. This is because by prepending l to the first 2 characters, we get l??. If we find la at the 0th index (la?), then the first character of input must be a. If we finds la at the 1st index (lla), then the input must starts with la.