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sixdoubleo
Major Contributor
USA
859 Posts
Status: offline |
 Posted - 11/09/2011 : 3:32:51 PM
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Anybody know of any Powershell forums where they do regular "golf" contests? (Writing a script to perform a specific task with as few characters as possible). They have this on the Kix forum I go to and I always found it a fun, challenging way to hone your skills.
Furthermore, they would always come up with some really interesting challenges that had application in things like encoding, encryption, string manipulation, etc.
I'm doing more work in Powershell now, and as I try to come up to speed with it, I was wondering if such a forum existed?
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sixdoubleo
Major Contributor
USA
859 Posts
Status: offline |
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jhicks
Here To Stay
USA
283 Posts
Status: offline |
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Xenophane
Honorable But Hopeless Addict
Denmark
3070 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 11/10/2011 : 04:00:02 AM
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Having been a judge on the 2011 Scipting Games contest I can tell you "golf" entries didn't get the highest of scores...
We put a lot of emphasis on readability :) |
Microsoft Powershell MVP
SIG> George Bernard Shaw : The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. </SIG>
You can read my blog at www.xipher.dk |
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jhicks
Here To Stay
USA
283 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 11/10/2011 : 06:59:07 AM
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| Agreed. Brevity is not always a virtue with a script. But when running a command at the prompt, it can be. Granted, it can get pretty arcane but I guess that's where the fun is. As long as people realize that these types of expressions are NOT what you need to know to use PowerShell. |
Jeffery Hicks
Windows PowerShell MVP
http://jdhitsolutions.com.blog
http://twitter.com/JeffHicks
http://www.ScriptingGeek.com
Now Available: Managing Active Directory with Windows PowerShell: TFM 2nd ed. |
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JSCLMEDAVE
Administrator
USA
6116 Posts
Status: online |
Posted - 11/10/2011 : 07:59:06 AM
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Perhaps make the comments and help entries exempt.
So if your script is -
gc $_.{{$!}}"." but you have three paragraphs to explain it with .Example , that is ok..?
Just a thought... |
Tim-
“This too shall pass" |
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jhicks
Here To Stay
USA
283 Posts
Status: offline |
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JSCLMEDAVE
Administrator
USA
6116 Posts
Status: online |
Posted - 11/10/2011 : 08:19:47 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by jhicks
Absolutely. A cryptic one liner has no value unless you explain it.
Just to confirm what may be obvious to many, this gc $_.{{$!}}"." is just random entries...
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Tim-
“This too shall pass" |
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jhicks
Here To Stay
USA
283 Posts
Status: offline |
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lady_mcse
Old Timer
636 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 11/10/2011 : 12:36:03 PM
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| Shucks, and I thought it meant get colossal amounts of cash, and embrace it. Period. End quote. |
Anne O'Day
MCITP: SharePoint 2010 |
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sixdoubleo
Major Contributor
USA
859 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 11/10/2011 : 1:10:59 PM
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Understood Claus...I'm using the term "golf" just as a generic term to describe scripting challenges in general. Many times in the absence of some impartial judge (as in the case of the scripting games) code length is the only measure you have that's fair.
While I write VERY verbose code for my production work, I still do enjoy some of the script golf exercises as they really challenge you to think about how to construct your logic in a more efficient manner. Some of the clever methods people come up with really are amazing. And while I understand that the shortest script isn't always the fastest script, the golfing exercise itself can be a lot of fun and help you improve your skills.
Over on the Kix forums, they're doing this one on Whitespace Obfuscation, which itself is pretty fascinating.
http://kixtart.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=203581&fpart=1
For their golf contests they've written a scoring engine in kix that calls your script and feeds it a standard set of test validations and then spits out a score. They do a private round for a week where you only post the results of your test, but nobody posts any code. Then after a week it goes to the public phase where everybody posts their code along with tests. At that point you're free to "steal" each others code and try to golf it down further.
Anyway, I wrote mine and while I was nearly twice as large as the others and not competitive at all, I was happy just to get the thing working and pass the test cases :)
I was going to go ahead and do it in Powershell just as a learning exercise to see how small I could get it. |
Edited by - sixdoubleo on 11/10/2011 1:11:49 PM |
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Xenophane
Honorable But Hopeless Addict
Denmark
3070 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 11/11/2011 : 04:13:19 AM
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$InStr = "This is my very secure string that I do not want anyone to read :)"
$SecureString = ([string]::Join("", ($InStr.ToCharArray() | % {"$([Convert]::ToString([string][int]$_,2))".Padleft(8,"0")}))) -replace 1," " -replace 0, "`t"
$SecureString
$UnSecureString = [string]::Join("",([regex]::Split($($SecureString -replace " ",1 -replace "`t",0), "(\d{8})") | % { if ($_){[Char][Convert]::ToInt64($_,2)}}))
$UnSecureString |
Microsoft Powershell MVP
SIG> George Bernard Shaw : The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. </SIG>
You can read my blog at www.xipher.dk |
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sixdoubleo
Major Contributor
USA
859 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 11/11/2011 : 1:36:45 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Xenophane
$InStr = "This is my very secure string that I do not want anyone to read :)"
$SecureString = ([string]::Join("", ($InStr.ToCharArray() | % {"$([Convert]::ToString([string][int]$_,2))".Padleft(8,"0")}))) -replace 1," " -replace 0, "`t"
$SecureString
$UnSecureString = [string]::Join("",([regex]::Split($($SecureString -replace " ",1 -replace "`t",0), "(\d{8})") | % { if ($_){[Char][Convert]::ToInt64($_,2)}}))
$UnSecureString
Nice Claus! Now excuse me while I sit here and figure out what it does :)
I wrote the encrypt part in PS and it looks similar to yours, although I still have a ton to learn. For instance, I see you are going straight from a character to binary, whereas I'm taking the decimal value as a separate step and converting that to binary.
I also didn't think about using replace and instead used a switch statement. I also am obviously a bit old-skool in my concatenation techniques with "$o=$o+=..." :) Good stuff though.
Here's mine (just the encrypt, didn't have time to do the decrypt)
function e{param($t)[int[]][char[]]$t|foreach{[Convert]::ToString($_, 2).PadLeft(8,"0").ToCharArray()|foreach{switch($_){"0"{$o=$o+=[char]32}"1"{$o=$o+=[char]9}}}};return $o}
$x = e "Hello World"
Add-Content "C:\Scripts\WOEncode.txt" $x
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Powershell Golf Contests
