Range of ASCII values

Question

Your task

Given a string, output the range of ASCII values.

Example

Let's say we have the string Hello.

We get the ASCII values:

• H = 72
• e = 101
• l = 108
• l = 108
• o = 111

Now, we get the range (max - min):

• 111 - 72 = 39

Our answer is 39.

Test cases

Input           Output
Hello, World!   82
aaaaa           0
Code Golf       79
Stack Exchange  88
ASCII           18

Scoring

For scoring, we will get the range of ASCII/Unicode values of your program source code, and add that to the length of your code in bytes.

For example, with the program abc, the score would be:

• 3 (the length of the program) + 2 (the ASCII range of the program) = 5

You can use this TIO link to get your score.

Clarifications

• There will be no non-ASCII characters in the input (but your program source code may contain non-ASCII characters)
• There will be no newline characters in the input (but your program source code may include newlines)
• Lowest score wins

Answer 1

Haskell, 27 bytes + 84 = score 111

_?s=(maximum$s)-(minimum$s)

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Answer 2

J-uby, 21 bytes + 87 = 108

:bytes|:-%[:max,:min]

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Answer 3

q, 19 bytes

(-/)7h$(max;min)@\:

k4, 17 bytes

(-/)7h$(|/;&/)@\:

Answer 4

J, score = 15 + 79 = 94

[:(>./-<./)3&u:

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[:(>./-<./)3&u:
[:               NB. enforce f (g y)
           3&u:  NB. convert string to list of char codes
  (       )      NB. monadic fork
       <./       NB. min
   >./           NB. max
      -          NB. subtract

Answer 5

05AB1E, score: 158 124 (4 bytes)

Ç{¥O

Try it online or verify all test cases or verify its score.

Explanation:

Ç     # Get a list of codepoint integers of the (implicit) input-string
 {    # Sort them
  ¥   # Get the forward differences/deltas
   O  # Sum those together
      # (after which the result is output implicitly)

Answer 6

MathGolf, score: 200 191 (4 6 bytes†)

^{†: MathGolf uses Code page 437.}

$_╙\╓-

Increased the byte-count to slightly improve the score, but this is pretty hopeless.. The ord builtin $ is too far apart from most of the other useful builtins like min(╓)/max(╙)/sum(Σ)..

Input as a list of characters.

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Explanation:

$       # Get the codepoint integers of each character in the (implicit) input-list
 _      # Duplicate it
  ╙     # Pop and push its maximum
   \    # Swap
    ╓   # Pop and push its minimum
     -  # Subtract this minimum from the maximum
        # (after which the entire stack is output implicitly)

Answer 7

><>, Score: 50 bytes + 74 = 124

0ff*i:0(ee+*98++0.:@:@$:@)?$?>@$:@$:@(?$?>$30.@-n;

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Explanation

Initialize max = 0 and min = 225.
Then go through the input and update these values as needed.
At the end, print max - min.

Range Max: n = 110
We need n to print a number, so there isn't much we can do about this.

Range Min: $ = 36
$ swaps the top 2 values of the stack. Replacing it could save 6 on the range, but since we are using it in 6 places it seems unlikely that could we could save on the score by the reducing the range.

Code

We've replaced ~ = 126 with ? and r = 114 with @$ which saves 16 on the range at the cost of 3 bytes.

We've replaced the line feed = 10 with jumps . = 46 which saves 26 on the range at the cost of 6 bytes.

Answer 8

Perl 5 -plF'' 33 bytes + 84 = 117

@_=map ord,sort@F;$_=$_[-1]-$_[0]

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Answer 9

Factor, 70 range + 21 bytes = 91 score

math.statistics:range

Requires modernish Factor for fully-qualified word syntax, hence nothing online will suffice.

Answer 10

PHP, 39 bytes + 84 -> 123

fn($s)=>max($a=unpack('C*',$s))-min($a)

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EDIT: OK this time I admit functional approach is way better :P

OLD VERSION:

PHP, -F 67 bytes + 78 -> 145

for($n=INF;$c=ord($argn[$i++]);$c<$m?:$m=$c)$c>$n?:$n=$c;echo$m-$n;

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I wanted to give it a shot without arrays / min / max, in my traditional horrific-full of dollars-for loop Style and try to optimize for ASCII range rather. Stupid $argn cannot be in full caps. funny that it gives the same score like this (caps and no space nor brackets was the original plan):

PHP, -F 88 bytes + 57 -> 145

FOR($N=INF;$C=ORD($GLOBALS[STRTOLOWER(ARGN)][$I++]);$C<$M?:$M=$C)$C>$N?:$N=$C;ECHO$M-$N;

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Answer 11

APL, 11 chars + 9069-codepoint range = 9080.

(In Dyalog one-byte encoding, range is 186 for a total of 197.)

(⌈/-⌊/)⎕UCS

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Answer 12

Python 3, 32 bytes + 88 = 120

lambda x:ord(max(x))-ord(min(x))

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Answer 13

GolfScript, 8 bytes, score 64

$(\)@-\;

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Explanation

char     : usage                                : stack
$        : ($)ort the (implicit) input          : <sorted input>
 (       : take the first element out           : <sorted input> <first item>
  \      : swap the top two values of the stack : <first item> <sorted input>
   )     : last item                            : <first item> <sorted input> <last item>
    @    : rotate the stack                     : <sorted input> <last item> <first item>
     -   : subtract, giving us the range        : <sorted input> <range>
      \  : swap the top two values on the stack : <range> <sorted input>
       ; : discard the top of the stack         : <range>
(after which the stack is implicitly output)

Answer 14

Java 8, 106 ¹⁰⁸ bytes + 80 range = score 186 ¹⁸⁸

-2 bytes thanks to @ceilingcat

s->(s.chars().reduce(0,(a,b)->a>0?b>a>>16?b*65792-a%256*255:b<a%256?a/65536*65792-b*255:a:b*65537)>>8)%256

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There is a better Java solution already posted, but maybe my answer could interest some people.

I'm not sure how to properly explain it, but by trying to keep only 1 inline Java stream, my goal was to carry 3 numbers < 256 inside only 1 integer ("a", the accumulator of the stream reduction) using this structure:
[_____max_value_____] [difference_between_max_and_min] [____min_value____]
<- 65 536 and over -> <- from 256 to 65 535 -> <- from 0 to 255 ->

Answer 15

Lua, 66 57 bytes + 89 86 = score 155 143

s=...print(math.max(s:byte(1,#s))-math.min(s:byte(1,#s)))

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Program which takes command line argument for the strings.

Answer 16

KamilaLisp v0.2, 88 + 35 = 123

[- $(foldl1 max) $(foldl1 min)]@ucs

Answer 17

Stax, 2 bytes + 57 = 59 score

:s

Run and debug it

Apparently there's a builtin...

Answer 18

Go, 95 bytes + 93 = 188

func(s string)int{m:=rune(s[0]);n:=m;for _,r:=range s{if m<r{m=r};if n>r{n=r}};return int(m-n)}

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Answer 19

Python 3, 39 bytes + 80 range = 119

print(ord(max(a:=input()))-ord(min(a)))

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A full program is one point better here because it avoids the minimum character " " (32) for "(" (40).

Answer 20

Arturo, 31 bytes + 33 = ^{106 94} 64

function[x][do[x|min]x|max|sub]

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Answer 21

PowerShell, 58 bytes + 93 = 151

$args|%{$a=($_|% t*y)|%{[byte][char]$_}|sort;$a[-1]-$a[0]}

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Answer 22

Raku (Perl 6) (rakudo), 16 bytes + 78 = 94

+*.ords.minmax-1

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Answer 23

Nekomata, 6 bytes + 66 = 72

eo:h-l

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eo:h-l
e       Convert to codepoints
 o      Sort
  :     Duplicate
   h    Head
    -   Subtract
     l  Last

Answer 24

Vyxal 2.4.1 K, 4 bytes + 26 range = Score 30

G?-G

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If I knew what I was doing in 2021, this could have been 3 bytes with the G flag, but I never did figure out how to make the K flag play nice with other flags.

Explained

G?-G­⁡​‎‎⁡⁠⁡‏‏​⁡⁠⁡‌⁢​‎‎⁡⁠⁢‏⁠‎⁡⁠⁣‏‏​⁡⁠⁡‌⁣​‎‎⁡⁠⁤‏‏​⁡⁠⁡‌­
G     # ‎⁡Greatest character in the input
 ?-   # ‎⁢With each character code subtract from it
   G  # ‎⁣Greatest of those
💎

Created with the help of Luminespire.

Answer 25

Uiua, 23 bytes + 20 range = 43

subbotfironrevselrisdup

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Explanation

-∩⊢⟜⇌⊏⍏.
      ⊏⍏. sort the array (by codepoints)
   ⟜⇌     get its reverse but keep the original on top
 ∩⊢       get the first element of both arrays, resulting in the first and last elements
-         get their difference

Answer 26

Forth (gforth), 62 bytes + 56 range = 118

: F BOUNDS 0 128 2SWAP DO I C@ MIN SWAP I C@ MAX SWAP LOOP - ;

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Explanation

Loops through the string, keeping track of the min and max ascii code on the stack, then subtracts them at the end. Forth words are case insensitive, so using all uppercase saved some range in the score without affecting the functionality.

Code Explanation

: f (addr len -- n)  \ Start new word definition
  bounds     \ get the start and end address of the string
  0 128      \ create default max (0) and min (126) variables on the stack
  2swap do   \ move the addresses back into position and start a loop
    i c@ min \ get the current char and compare with the min
    swap     \ move result back on the stack
    i c@ max \ get the current char and compare with the max
    swap     \ move result back on the stack
  loop       \ end the loop
  -          \ subtract the min from the max
;            \ end the word definition