How much snow did you get?

Question

My apologies for the wordiness. We had fun with it at work in our internal golfing, but it required a few emails for clarification, so I hope I captured most of that the first time.

PROBLEM

Given a “simulated” snowfall snapshot (as a string, stdin or parameter to your function/method), report on 4 values: minimum depth, maximum depth, average depth, and duration.

Here’s a formatted example to illustrate the input:

* * **     
** * ***    
** *  *    
*          
--------

The ‘*’ is a snowflake and the ‘-‘ is the ground. Imagine all of those “snowflakes” falling toward the ground. This is the final “snapshot”:

*      
*          
** * **    
********    
--------

You need to report on:

1. Minimum depth - count the shortest “pile” (1, in example above)
2. Maximum depth - count the tallest “pile” (4, in example above)
3. Average depth - average count of all “piles” (1.9, in example above - rounding to tenths)
4. Duration - (each “fall” = 1 second) - time from the first snapshot to the last snapshot (3 seconds, in example above)

Another example for reference:

     * 
   *   *
      *
*      
--------

Final snapshot:

*  * ***
--------

INPUT

The starting “snapshot” will have 8 “rows”, 8 “columns”, and be pipe-delimited (the pipes separate the rows). For example (excluding quotes):

“        |        |        |        |     *  |   *   *|      * |*       |--------” 

OUTPUT

The 4 values pipe-delimited on a single line: 0|1|.6|3 or 0|5|1|1

Answer 1

Python, 153 characters

s=raw_input()
R=range(8)
C=[s[i::9].count('*')for i in R]
print"%d|%d|%.1f|%d"%(min(C),max(C),sum(C)/8.,max(8-s[i::9].find('*')-C[i]for i in R if C[i]))

Answer 2

Perl, 128 chars

map{$d++;s/\*/$d{$-[0]}++;$t&&$t<$d or$t=$d/ge}split'\|',<>;map{$A+=$_/8}@m=sort values%d;printf"$m[0]|$m[-1]|%.1f|%d\n",$A,8-$t

Answer 3

Windows PowerShell, 180 189

$a=(0..7|%{$x=$_;-join(0..7|%{$s[$_*9+$x]})})
$b=$a-replace' '|%{$_.length}|sort
"{0}|{1}|{2:.0}|{3}"-f($b[-1..0]+(($b-join'+'|iex)/8),($a|%{($_-replace'^ +|\*').length}|sort)[-1])

Input comes in as $s.

History:

• 2011-02-10 01:53 (189) – First attempt.
• 2011-02-10 02:03 (180) – Format string to the rescue. Only downside: It outputs numbers in regional format, no longer strictly conforming to the task specification. Still, that's a problem shared by the C# solution as well so I guess that's ok.

Answer 4

A couple other language results from our internal golfing:

C#, 188 characters (easily readable)

int a = 0, b = 8, c = 0, d = 0, f, i, j, x;    
for (i = 0; i < 8; i++)    
{    
      f = x = 0;    
      for (j = 0; j < 8; )
            if (s[i + j++ * 9] == '*')    
            {    
                  x = x > 0 ? x : 9 - j;    
                  f++;    
            }         

      d += f;    
      a = f > a ? f : a;    
      b = f < b ? f : b;    
      c = x - f > c ? x - f : c;    
}

Console.Write("{0}|{1}|{2:.0}|{3}", b, a, d / 8f, c);

Ruby, 173 characters

s=gets;n=8;a=o=l=0;8.times{|i|f=x=0;8.times{|j|if(s[i+j*9].chr=='*'):x=8-j if x==0;f+=1;end}
o+=f;a=f if f>a;n=f if f<n;l=x-f if x-f>l}
printf "%d|%d|%.1f|%d",n,a,o.to_f/8,l

Answer 5

PHP, 139 bytes

<?for(;$y<8;$y++)for($x=0;++$n[$x],$x<8;$x++)'!'>$argv[1][$y*9+$x]&&--$n[$x]?$b[$x]++:0;print_r([min($n),max($n),array_sum($n)/8,max($b)]);

for each column, count no. of snowflakes and no. of spaces below the first snowflake, then calculate
takes string as argument from command line

breakdown and golfing steps

$i=$argv[1];
for(;$y<8;$y++)         # $y=row
{
    for($x=0;$x<8;$x++) # $x=column
    {
        // loop body: 32+26=58 bytes
        if('*'==$i[$p=$y*9+$x])$n[$x]++;# if snowflake: increase snowflakes count
        elseif($n[$x]+=0)$b[$x]++;      # elseif has snowflakes: increase blanks count
                                        # +=0: min needs a value in every column

        // -> golf if/elseif to ternaries, 16+9+25+1 = 51 (-7)
#       '*'==$i[$y*9+$x]
#           ? $n[$x]++
#           : (($n[$x]+=0)?$b[$x]++:0)
#       ;

        // golfing on the ternary, 15+23+9+1 = 48 (-3)
#       '!'>$i[$y*9+$x]                 # -1: char<'!' <=> char==' '
#           ? ($n[$x]+=0)?$b[$x]++:0    # -2: inverted condition -> eliminated parens
#           : $n[$x]++
#       ; # 15+23+9+1-2=46

        // increase snowflakes count in any case (initialization)
        // (needs curlies; elminate them by moving increase to the for condition)
        // decrease snowflakes count for blank
#       ++$n[$x];if('!'>$i[$y*9+$x]&&--$n[$x])$b[$x]++; # if: 47
#       ++$n[$x];'!'>$i[$y*9+$x]&&--$n[$x]?$b[$x]++:0;  # ternary: 46
    }
}
print_r([min($n),max($n),array_sum($n)/8,max($b)]); # calculate and print results

add round(...,1) around array_sum($n)/8 for rounding (+9)

Answer 6

Mathematica, ~115

"        \n        \n* * **  \n        \n** * ***\n** *  * \n*       \n--------"

Most/@ToCharacterCode@%~Partition~9/10-16/5
Min@#|Max@#|Mean@#~Round~.1|Position[#,1][[{-1,1},1]].{1,-1}-1&@Total@%

1 | 4 | 1.9 | 4

In this post I had to resort to the escaped string form \n as paste and copy loses spaces. In the Front End I can enter it like this:

Answer 7

JavaScript, 328 Bytes

Not particularly short, but it's what I've got.

var input = "        |        |        |* * **  |        |** * ***|** *  * |*       |--------";

(s=>{var l=s.split("|"),a=[0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0],o=[8,0,0,0],b;for(i=0;i<l.length;i++){if(!b&&l[i]!="        ")o[3]=7-i,b=1;for(j=0;j<l[i].length;j++){a[j]+=l[i][j]=="*"?1:0}}for(i=0;i<a.length;i++){if(a[i]<o[0])o[0]=a[i];if(a[i]>o[1])o[1]=a[i];o[2]+=a[i];}console.log(o[0]+"|"+o[1]+"|"+(o[2]/a.length).toFixed(1)+"|"+o[3]);})(input)

De-golfed:

var input = "        |        |        |        |     *  |   *   *|      * |*       |--------";

(s=>{
  var splits = s.split("|");
  var arr = [0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0];
  var b;
  var o=[8,0,0,0];
  for (var i = 0; i < splits.length; i++) {
    if (!b&&splits[i]!="        ") {
      o[3] = 7-i;b=1;
    }
    for (var j = 0; j < splits[i].length; j++) {
      arr[j]+=splits[i][j]=="*"?1:0;
    }
  }
  for (var i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {
    if (arr[i]<o[0]) {
      o[0]=arr[i];
    }
    if (arr[i]>o[1]) {
      o[1]=arr[i];
    }
    o[2]+=arr[i];
  }
  console.log(o[0]+"|"+o[1]+"|"+(o[2]/arr.length).toFixed(1)+"|"+o[3]);
})(input)