Competition : Win a ticket to GeeCON Prague 2014

CodeRanch is offering 1 free ticket (yes, a free ticket!) to GeeCON Prague 2014 which is scheduled for 23 - 24 October 2014.

The event boasts Java and JVM based technologies, dynamic languages, enterprise architectures, patterns, distributed computing, software craftsmanship, mobile and much more...

To stand a chance of winning the ticket, all you have to do is enter our fun programming competition, posting your solutions in this very thread. You can even post more than once. The solution that we, the CodeRanch staff, think is the best will win the ticket to GeeCON Prague 2014. Also, as an added bonus, the winner will have the opportunity to meet one of our esteemed Marshal's Ulf Dittmer who will be attending the conference too.

The contest ends Friday 10th October, with the winner announced by Saturday 11th October. Good luck, and have fun!!

The Competition: Java obfuscated word occurrence counter

The Problem

Write a program that takes a sentence, a String with words delimited by whitespace, and returns the occurrence of each word as a Map of words (key) to occurrence count (value).

The Criteria

Write a program that solves the problem, while being as unreadable to the human eye as possible. (Obfuscation)

Bonus points for achieving it in the least amount of code. (Code Golf)

The Rules

The sentence is a String delimited by single whitespace characters. Assume no punctuation.

Words are case insensitive. "CodeRanch" is the same as "coderanch"

Words are mapped in lowercase form. "CodeRanch" is mapped as "coderanch"

Java SE only. No third party libraries allowed.

Must compile and run with Java8 JDK and JRE

Must comply with the following method signature

For example
The sentence (String) "I really REALLY love CodeRanch" returns the occurrence (Map) {i=1, really=2, love=1, coderanch=1}

A test harness to get you started
Provided is a simple Java class with the skeleton method signature and a couple of tests that you can use to verify the correct functionality. For writing your solution you are only interested in the method skeleton on lines 6 - 9, this is where you complete the method with your solution to make it function correctly.

How to run the test harness
Take a copy of this code and paste it into a file called GeeConComp.java.

Compile it

javac GeeConComp.java

Run it

java GeeConComp

Initially the output will report test failures, which is expected as the solution has not been written yet.

CodeRanch GeeCON Prague 2014 competition
========================================
Test FAIL :(
Expected: {love=1, coderanch=1, i=1, really=2}
Actual : null
Test FAIL :(
Expected: {better=3, never=1, rest=1, may=1, and=1, i=1, best=2, until=1, is=1, my=2, good=2}
Actual : null

What you want to see is passing tests

CodeRanch GeeCON Prague 2014 competition
========================================
Test PASS :)
Test PASS :)

That's it! Enjoy.

Using pure reduction



or using grouping

Seems like a good way to attract people to the ranch.
Three attempts so far - two from newly registered people and one that's a first post from someone who registered two and a half years ago.

Joanne Neal wrote:one that's a first post from someone who registered two and a half years ago.

Yea who does that! (ActiveStaff#timcooke)

Tim Cooke wrote:Tim joined CodeRanch in 2008 but didn't post a single thing until early 2013. Nobody knows why

Remember, obfuscation is the name of the game in this competition. We're looking for the most unreadable code you can muster while being functionally correct.

Not so obscure but my first attempt.

Welcome to the Ranch all of you.

I've entered the competition but I still am amazed that you promote "unreadable" code. Whenever at any conference I see companies promoting them selves with contests like "what this Java puzzler do" or "what will be the output of that function" I simply scream and run away. Would you really like to work in a place were you are promoted for understanding unreadable code?

I like the idea of the "golf rule" as concise code can be still comprehensible. But "unreadable" code by its nature will not.

We do not believe that anybody would produce unreadable code in real life, but wanted to try something along the lines of the famous International Obfuscated C Contests.

Assuming that I can call a Scala method from a Java file, here is my scalafied version:

Joe, remember the rules:

Java SE only. No third party libraries allowed.

Must compile and run with Java8 JDK and JRE

That means no Scala. Sorry Joe.

I will give it another try with Java SE!

Pawel Szulc wrote:I've entered the competition but I still am amazed that you promote "unreadable" code.

Hi Pawel. None of us here at the Ranch would ever promote that you write unreadable code in the real world. But for this competition we wanted to make it fun and interesting by getting you thinking a little differently and have you write the most obscure code you can come up with that still solves a simple problem.

@Joe Harry, You can enter as many times as you like, so go nuts.

Here is my obfuscated version:

I can already see that my obfuscated version fails the test for a String input



Of course, I can obfuscate it further and fix it. Is it necessary?

Please don't use this thread to develop your applications. Please only post the final versions here.
If you want to discuss what happens if you post "Campbell Ritchie     is a dreadful nuisance" please go to one of the Java fora.

Don't copy‑and‑paste this post.

Sorry, I only was uploading some versions, so you can check which one match the best with the criteria...

Joe Harry wrote:I can already see that my obfuscated version fails the test for a String input



Of course, I can obfuscate it further and fix it. Is it necessary?

No.

The Rules wrote:The sentence is a String delimited by single whitespace characters. Assume no punctuation.

That means you don't have to handle multiple whitespace. You can assume it never happens.

As a general note to all. Please don't forget to UseCodeTags when posting code. Omitting their use does not qualify as a valid obfuscation technique.

Adalberto Toledo wrote: . . . which one match the best with the criteria...

If the code fulfils the rules of the contest compiles and produces a PASS result from Tim's test harness, each would count as a separate entry. Multiple entries are welcomed

Adalberto Toledo wrote:

This does not comply with the rules that only standard JavaSE classes may be used. I suggest you resubmit with that import removed. Consider StringJoiner instead.

Campbell Ritchie wrote:

Adalberto Toledo wrote:

This does not comply with the rules that only standard JavaSE classes may be used. I suggest you resubmit with that import removed. Consider StringJoiner instead.

You are right however, my solution is only the wordOccurrence method, that library is only used in the Main method, just for running the program and convert the arguments passed by the Command Line Interface (CLI), to a String delimited by a single whitespace.

Anyway, I appreciate your suggestion and I will consider the StringJoiner Class instead of the StringUtils Class.

Please, try to evaluate only my wordOccurrence method because that is my solution.

Before that solution, I submitted a solution without the Main method and it doesn't have that library imported, do you want me to submit it again?

Thanks a lot

Best Regards

Adalberto Toledo wrote:that library is only used in the Main method

Noted. Solution accepted.

//soln by [email protected]