Python tips

Run a single pytest with:

def extract_ints(a_string): return tuple(map(int, re.findall(r'-?\d+', a_string))) pytest -k name_of_test http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/Advent%21of%20Code.ipynb

start a debugger

import ipdb; ipdb.set_trace() run pytest with pytest -s to disable console

# this is taken from https://github.com/norvig/pytudes/blob/master/ipynb/Advent%20of%20Code.ipynb
# and just kept here for refernce
# Python 3.x
import re
import numpy as np
import math
import urllib.request

from collections import Counter, defaultdict, namedtuple, deque
from functools   import lru_cache
from itertools   import permutations, combinations, chain, cycle, product, islice
from heapq       import heappop, heappush

def Input(day):
    "Open this day's input file."
    filename = 'advent2016/input{}.txt'.format(day)
    try:
        return open(filename)
    except FileNotFoundError:
        return urllib.request.urlopen("http://norvig.com/ipython/" + filename)

def transpose(matrix): return zip(*matrix)

def first(iterable): return next(iter(iterable))

def nth(iterable, n, default=None):
    "Returns the nth item of iterable, or a default value"
    return next(islice(iterable, n, None), default)

cat = ''.join

Ø   = frozenset() # Empty set
inf = float('inf')
BIG = 10 ** 999

def grep(pattern, lines):
    "Print lines that match pattern."
    for line in lines:
        if re.search(pattern, line):
            print(line)

def groupby(iterable, key=lambda it: it):
    "Return a dic whose keys are key(it) and whose values are all the elements of iterable with that key."
    dic = defaultdict(list)
    for it in iterable:
        dic[key(it)].append(it)
    return dic

def powerset(iterable):
    "Yield all subsets of items."
    items = list(iterable)
    for r in range(len(items)+1):
        for c in combinations(items, r):
            yield c

# 2-D points implemented using (x, y) tuples
def X(point): return point[0]
def Y(point): return point[1]

def neighbors4(point): 
    "The four neighbors (without diagonals)."
    x, y = point
    return ((x+1, y), (x-1, y), (x, y+1), (x, y-1))

def neighbors8(point): 
    "The eight neighbors (with diagonals)."
    x, y = point 
    return ((x+1, y), (x-1, y), (x, y+1), (x, y-1),
            (x+1, y+1), (x-1, y-1), (x+1, y-1), (x-1, y+1))

def cityblock_distance(p, q=(0, 0)): 
    "City block distance between two points."
    return abs(X(p) - X(q)) + abs(Y(p) - Y(q))

def euclidean_distance(p, q=(0, 0)): 
    "Euclidean (hypotenuse) distance between two points."
    return math.hypot(X(p) - X(q), Y(p) - Y(q))

def trace1(f):
    "Print a trace of the input and output of a function on one line."
    def traced_f(*args):
        result = f(*args)
        print('{}({}) = {}'.format(f.__name__, ', '.join(map(str, args)), result))
        return result
    return traced_f

def astar_search(start, h_func, moves_func):
    "Find a shortest sequence of states from start to a goal state (a state s with h_func(s) == 0)."
    frontier  = [(h_func(start), start)] # A priority queue, ordered by path length, f = g + h
    previous  = {start: None}  # start state has no previous state; other states will
    path_cost = {start: 0}     # The cost of the best path to a state.
    while frontier:
        (f, s) = heappop(frontier)
        if h_func(s) == 0:
            return Path(previous, s)
        for s2 in moves_func(s):
            new_cost = path_cost[s] + 1
            if s2 not in path_cost or new_cost < path_cost[s2]:
                heappush(frontier, (new_cost + h_func(s2), s2))
                path_cost[s2] = new_cost
                previous[s2] = s
    return dict(fail=True, front=len(frontier), prev=len(previous))
                
def Path(previous, s): 
    "Return a list of states that lead to state s, according to the previous dict."
    return ([] if (s is None) else Path(previous, previous[s]) + [s])

# turn a string st into a binary representation
''.join(format(ord(x), 'b') for x in st)

AoC tips from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18559619

stdlib: binascii, collections (especially defaultdict), fractions (gcd), itertools (combinations, combinations_with_replacement, permutations, product, izip, chain), md5, re, os/sys.

Non-std: networkx (graphs and shortest path), sympy (isprime()), numpy (efficient representation of large arrays).

It's useful to have a canned exhaustive tree search prepared (breadth/depth/"best"-first search).

You can use complex numbers to represent 2-dimensional coordinates and direction; turning the unit vector left and right involves multiplying by 1j and -1j, respectively, and movement is addition.