Questions tagged [string]
A competition to solve a particular problem through the usage and manipulation of strings.
1,698
questions
423
votes
759answers
128k views
“Hello, World!”
So... uh... this is a bit embarrassing. But we don't have a plain "Hello, World!" challenge yet (despite having 35 variants tagged with hello-world, and counting). While this is not the most ...
372
votes
36answers
52k views
Covfefify a string
In this challenge, you must take a string matching the regex ^[a-zA-Z]+$ or whatever is reasonable (you don't have to consider uppercase or lowercase letters if you ...
341
votes
1answer
108k views
Regex that only matches itself
There are some pretty cool challenges out there involving regex (Self-matching regex, Regex validating regex)
This may well be impossible, but is there a regex that will ONLY match itself?
NOTE, ...
199
votes
60answers
16k views
No A, just CAPS LOCK
What happens when the CapsLock key on your keyboard doesn't have a notch in it?
"This hPPENS."
The goal of this program is to consistently emulate keyboard misses where each A press is replaced with ...
177
votes
27answers
20k views
Do you want to code a snowman?
Here is a simple ASCII art snowman:
_===_
(.,.)
( : )
( : )
Let's make him some friends. This will be the general pattern for our ASCII art snowpeople:
...
175
votes
47answers
28k views
Mathematics is fact. Programming is not
In mathematics an exclamation mark ! often means factorial and it comes after the argument.
In programming an exclamation mark !...
161
votes
127answers
31k views
Trick or Treat polyglot
Since Halloween is coming up I thought I might start a fun little code golf challenge!
The challenge is quite simple. You have to write a program that outputs either ...
158
votes
146answers
52k views
Don't google “google”
We all know that if you google the word "google" it will break the internet.
Your task is to create a function that accepts one string and returns its length, in the fewest possible Unicode ...
151
votes
267answers
40k views
1, 2, Fizz, 4, Buzz
Introduction
In our recent effort to collect catalogues of shortest solutions for standard programming exercises, here is PPCG's first ever vanilla FizzBuzz challenge. If you wish to see other ...
129
votes
71answers
16k views
Hello, World! (Every other character)
Write a program that prints "Hello, World!".
But also, if you take only the first, third, fifth, etc. characters of your program, the resulting program should still print "Hello, World!".
If your ...
122
votes
40answers
23k views
La La Land… no wait, Moo Moo Moonlight
This challenge is a tribute to the winner of Best Picture at the Oscars 2017, La La Land Moonlight!
Write a function/program that takes a string containing only letters ...
119
votes
181answers
30k views
Sing Happy Birthday to your favourite programming language
Your favourite programming language has just had a birthday. Be nice and sing it the Happy Birthday song.
Of course you should accomplish this by writing a program in that language.
The program takes ...
114
votes
55answers
26k views
GO OUT AND VOTE
Today is November 8th, 2016, Election Day in the United States of America.
If you are a U.S. citizen eligible to vote, then go out and vote if you haven't already before answering this challenge. Do ...
103
votes
64answers
25k views
I'm a palindrome. Are you?
There have been a couple of previous attempts to ask this question, but neither conforms to modern standards on this site. Per discussion on Meta, I'm reposting it in a way that allows for fair ...
95
votes
54answers
13k views
Make a “Ceeeeeeee” program
Once I wrote a JavaScript program that would take as input a string and a character and would remove all characters except for the first one and the character given as input, one by one.
For example, ...
93
votes
83answers
9k views
Unique is Cheap
Write a function or program that determines the cost of a given string, where
the cost of each character equals the number of how many times the character has occurred up to this point in the string,...
93
votes
14answers
19k views
I am passive aggressive and want to insult my boss without him finding out
It's been a rough few months at work and I feel like I just want to scream right to my boss' face. I am, however, not one to directly confront people I have a problem with. I also don't want to lose ...
92
votes
33answers
6k views
Would this string work as string?
Write a program that takes a single line string that you can assume will only contain the characters /\_‾. (That's forward and backward slash, underline and ...
88
votes
9answers
5k views
Golf an Advent Calendar
It's that time of year when many of us get our advent calendars! If you are unfamiliar with an advent calendar, these are special calendars used to count down advent in anticipation of Christmas. In ...
85
votes
75answers
22k views
It took me a lot of time to make this, pls like. (YouTube Comments #1)
Hold up..... this isn't trolling.
Background
These days on YouTube, comment sections are littered with such patterns:
...
85
votes
133answers
11k views
Determine whether strings are anagrams
Challenge
Given two strings, work out if they both have exactly the same characters in them.
Example
Input
word, wrdo
This returns true because they are the ...
85
votes
28answers
4k views
Vertically collapse text
Say I have text like this (each word on one line, with no spaces)
Programming
Puzzles
&
Code
Golf
That makes no sense! It totally defies the laws of physics.
...
84
votes
263answers
16k views
Simple cat program
One of the most common standard tasks (especially when showcasing esoteric programming languages) is to implement a "cat program": read all of STDIN and print it to STDOUT. While this is named after ...
84
votes
13answers
7k views
Z̡̬a̧̯̔l̆̓g̛̘̟o̡ generator
Write a program or function that transforms an input string into Zalgo text.
For example, for an input string Zalgo, a possible output might look like:
...
83
votes
40answers
13k views
What my dog really hears
My dog is called Rex. Every time I scold him, he seems not very impressed and the only times I see him react is when I pronounce his name. If I say
...
81
votes
139answers
12k views
Print a Tabula Recta!
Print a Tabula Recta!
The Tabula Recta (sometimes called a 'Vigenere Table'), was created by Johannes Trithemius, and has been used in several ciphers, including all variants of Bellaso's Vigenere ...
79
votes
128answers
22k views
The shortest code to invert bit-wise a binary string
Me thinks there aren't enough easy questions on here that beginners can attempt!
The challenge: Given a random input string of 1's and 0's such as:
...
77
votes
97answers
10k views
N(e(s(t))) a string
To "function nest" a string, you must:
Treat the first character as a function, and the following characters as the arguments to that function. For example, if the input string was ...
77
votes
60answers
6k views
From Programming Puzzles to Code Golf
Your task is to write a program that outputs the exact string Programming Puzzles (trailing newline optional), but when all spaces, tabs, and newlines are removed ...
76
votes
84answers
10k views
Count of “a”s and “b”s must be equal. Did you get it computer?
In the popular (and essential) computer science book, An Introduction to Formal Languages and Automata by Peter Linz, the following formal language is frequently stated:
mainly because this language ...
75
votes
37answers
12k views
Non-discriminating Programming
We say a string is non-discriminating if each of the string's characters appears the same number of times and at least twice.
Examples
"aa!1 1 !a !1" is non-...
75
votes
45answers
13k views
Code Johnny Code, Code!
Rock-and-roll founding father Chuck Berry sadly passed away today.
Consider the chorus of his famous song "Johnny B. Goode":
...
74
votes
22answers
8k views
Turtles All the Way Down
Write a program or function that takes in a positive integer and prints or returns a stack of that many ASCII-art turtles, where each turtle is larger than the one above it.
Specifically, if the ...
73
votes
145answers
16k views
“99 Bottles of Beer”
Write a program that outputs the lyrics to 99 Bottles of Beer, in as few bytes as possible.
Lyrics:
...
73
votes
86answers
17k views
Build me a brick wall!
Challenge
I need help building a brick wall! Throw together some code for me
using no input and produce the following output wall shown below:
...
72
votes
111answers
15k views
Print the alphabet without using each vowel
Inspiration: in 1939, a man named Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a novel called Gadsby without using the letter 'e'.
Your task is to write a set of (up to 5) programs in any language (which has a text-...
72
votes
40answers
8k views
Happy Birthday V!
Thanks to @KritixiLithos for helping me out with this challenge!
V is a programming language that I wrote so that I could use and extend vim for code-golf challenges. The very first commit was on ...
72
votes
36answers
4k views
Uncollapse digits
Task
Given a string of English names of digits “collapsed” together, like this:
zeronineoneoneeighttwoseventhreesixfourtwofive
Split the string back into digits:...
71
votes
60answers
16k views
Sing Baby Shark
"Baby Shark" is a children's song about a family of sharks. Having long been popular as a campfire song, it has been popularized since the mid-2000s by social media, online video and radio. - ...
71
votes
27answers
6k views
2016 Time Capsule String: How Versatile Is Your Language?
About a year ago on Dec 31, 2015, I had the idea that:
We should make a time capsule string. Everybody gets to add one character and next new years we'll see who can make the best program out of ...
69
votes
54answers
13k views
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength
As George Orwell wrote in 1984:
War is peaceFreedom is slaveryIgnorance is strength
Write a program or function that takes in one of the six main words from the Orwell quote and outputs its ...
68
votes
10answers
6k views
Rock, Polyglot, Scissors
Write a program that is a polyglot in three languages that plays rock–paper–scissors.
The input for any version of the program is always one of the strings rock or ...
68
votes
12answers
12k views
Operation Unz̖̬̜̺̬a͇͖̯͔͉l̟̭g͕̝̼͇͓̪͍o̬̝͍̹̻
I'm sure you're all familiar with Z̃͗̇̚͟Ḁ̬̹̈̊̂̏̚L̜̼͊ͣ̈́̿̚G̱̮ͩ̃͑̆ͤ̂̚Õ̷͇͉̺̜̲ͩ́ͪͬͦ͐ ̪̀ͤͨ͛̍̈͢ĝ̭͇̻̊ͮ̾͂e̬̤͔̩̋ͮ̊̈ͭ̓̃n͖͎̘̭̯̳͎͒͂̏̃̾ͯe͕̖̋ͧ͑ͪ̑r̛ͩa̴͕̥̺̺̫̾ͭ͂ͥ̄ͧ͆t͍̻̘̆o͓̥ͤͫ̃̈̂r̹̤͇̰̻̯̐ͮ̈́ͦ͂͞. If not, you can play ...
66
votes
55answers
12k views
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Recently, I've seen Hare Krishna people with their mantra on the emblem and I've found it may be quite interesting to code golf.
The challenge
Write the Hare Krishna mantra, i.e.:
...
66
votes
40answers
9k views
Uncomment a COBOL program!
COBOL is a very old language, at the time of writing it is 58 years old.
It is so old, in fact, that it has a very interesting quirk: the first six characters of each line are comments.
Why is this, ...
66
votes
24answers
5k views
Cracking the Enigma?
Introduction
The Enigma was one of the first electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines used in World War II. That means that after a single letter is coded, it would change the key for the next letter....
66
votes
41answers
4k views
Golfing A Weasel Program
Richard Dawkins in his book The Blind Watchmaker, describes a Weasel program. The algorithm can be described as follows:
Start with a random string of 28 characters. Valid characters are all ...
65
votes
22answers
11k views
The kitten command
A kitten is much like a cat. Some of the main differences are cuteness, lack of intelligence, and size. Similarly, the cat command is different from the ...
65
votes
19answers
8k views
All in all it's just, uh, another trick in code golf
The purpose of this challenge is to produce an ASCII version of the cover of this great album by the rock band Pink Floyd.
The brick junctions are made of characters ...
63
votes
12answers
3k views
Reverse indentation
I've heard that your code can run faster if you indent it in reverse, so that the compiler can process it like a tree design pattern from the very top of the "branches" down. This helps because ...
