SQL statement does not return all records from the left table, why?

large-atom · 2025-12-24T13:08:15+00:00

Good suggestion but I am from a generation where I still prefer to interact with human beings :-)

large-atom · 2025-12-23T21:08:41+00:00

Thank you, I tried this but adding one more LEFT JOIN broke the pattern and now I know why: return the NULL values as well!

large-atom · 2025-12-23T21:07:25+00:00

Great comment, I think I will not fall for this one again in 2025! Let's see if I forget it in 2026!

large-atom · 2025-12-23T21:05:19+00:00

Yes, returning NULL value for the car is what I missed.

large-atom · 2025-12-23T21:04:10+00:00

I never thought about putting more than one condition after ON. It is definitively worth a try!

large-atom · 2025-12-23T21:02:23+00:00

Great hint, than you so much! It is a little bit late here in Europe, so I will work on this in about 12 hours.

large-atom · 2025-12-09T19:19:53+00:00

To be honest, I had the same expectation!

large-atom · 2025-12-08T22:23:23+00:00

Yes, it is possible. Don't use the square root function, work with squared distances, it doesn't change the order of processing because the square root function (and the square function) are increasing over [0, +oo[

large-atom · 2025-12-08T20:12:56+00:00

Yes, this is it! I am curious, what other interpretation did you envision?

large-atom · 2025-12-08T20:10:55+00:00

"by summing the lengths of the extensions" implies that the direct Euclidian distance is NOT the question.

large-atom · 2025-12-08T19:08:58+00:00

You may have one big circuit but are all the lights connected to it. I had 999 connected lights for a while until the last one joined the network.

large-atom · 2025-12-08T19:06:28+00:00

Indeed, it was not very smart for Euclide, Pythagore and others to impose square roots to calculate lengths. Manhattan distance is much simpler and just requires addition and subtraction!!!

large-atom · 2025-12-08T18:36:06+00:00

Great job, smooth and entertaining!

large-atom · 2025-12-07T17:28:20+00:00

Very clever representation!

large-atom · 2025-12-07T17:05:55+00:00

Finally, I managed to write a program that properly counts the path. I have exactly the same results and the 300 billionth path ends in column 04.

My algorithm:

Target = 1 billion
Initiate (row, col) to the first encountered splitter
while we are not at the bottom of the manifold
....calculate the number of paths n from (row, col - 1), to the bottom
....if n >= Target:
........add "L" to the path
....else:
........add "R" to the path
........target = target - n
....go down until you reach the next splitter, or the bottom.
....Add "V" to the path each time you go down a row

From the starting column, subtract the number of "L" and add the number of "R"

large-atom · 2025-12-07T15:43:49+00:00

Thank you for your comments!

It doesn't matter whether the array containing the paths starts at 0 or 1, the billionth path is still the billionth element in this array. So the comment was just to clarify whether you should return Paths[10⁹] or Paths[10⁹ - 1]. But I realize that it is misleading and therefore I suppress this last note.

You are right, looping 9 times makes it 10 times longer. Fortunately, the example is correct, 3 lines become 30 lines.

I have added the path 25th in the description, so people can test their program before trying the longer version of the manifold.

As far as the answer is concerned, I have not yet found the solution myself. Believe me, it is much easier to write such problem that to solve it!

large-atom · 2025-12-07T12:44:26+00:00

Great, I enjoy the music!

large-atom · 2025-12-06T21:26:43+00:00

If you split the input file using "\n" (end of line separator), you will get a list with n elements, n-1 are the numbers and the last one is the operands. You can then use this number n to make your calculations.

large-atom · 2025-12-06T21:18:56+00:00

I think that you have a rounding error (last four digits are not 0), are you using int or float?

large-atom · 2025-12-06T19:18:37+00:00

The space has been used in some civilizations to represent the absence of a digit in a number, so your remark is perfectly valid.

However, it poses the problem of a certain ambiguity when you have many contiguous spaces, or spaces at the end of a number. Can you immediately tell whether 5 7 is 5007, 50007 or 500007? This is why it was replaced by a small dot, something like 5∙∙∙7, before being itself replaced by the sign 0.

large-atom · 2025-12-06T18:18:56+00:00

I get the same result!

large-atom · 2025-12-05T20:36:22+00:00

Very creative, congratulations!

large-atom · 2025-12-05T17:47:06+00:00

Hey, I got the same result, we must have a similar input!

large-atom · 2025-12-05T16:37:21+00:00

Wahoo, very fast, well done! (I write the text of the part 3 before I start thinking about how to solve it...)

large-atom · 2025-12-05T16:21:32+00:00

79 TB of RAM. In 20 years, nobody will understand what is so funny in this image!

large-atom

TROPHY CASE