Robbie's Perl Programming Blog

For those not familiar with "The Weekly Challenge", it is a weekly programming puzzle with two parts, with a new pair of tasks each Monday. You can find it here: The Weekly Challenge The Weekly Challenge for the week of 2026-04-20 through 2026-04-26 is #370. The tasks for challenge #370 are as follows: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Task 370-1: Popular Word Submitted by: Mohammad Sajid Anwar You are given a string paragraph and an array of banned words. Write a script to return the most popular word that is not banned. It is guaranteed there is at least one word that is not banned and the answer is unique. The words in paragraph are case-insensitive and the answer should be in lowercase. The words cannot contain punctuation symbols. Example #1: Inputs: [ "Bob hit a ball, the hit BALL flew far after it was hit.", ["hit"], ], Output: "ball" After removing punctuation and converting to lower...

For those not familiar with "The Weekly Challenge", it is a weekly programming puzzle with two parts, with a new pair of tasks each Monday. You can find it here: The Weekly Challenge The Weekly Challenge for the week of 2026-04-13 through 2026-04-19 is #369. The tasks for challenge #369 are as follows: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Task 369-1: Valid Tag Submitted by: Mohammad Sajid Anwar You are given a given a string caption for a video. Write a script to generate tag for the given string caption in three steps as mentioned below: 1. Format as camelCase Starting with a lower-case letter and capitalising the first letter of each subsequent word. Merge all words in the caption into a single string starting with a #. 2. Sanitise the String Strip out all characters that are not English letters (a-z or A-Z). 3. Enforce Length If the resulting string exceeds 100 characters, truncate it so it is exactly 100 characters long. Example #1: I...

For those not familiar with "The Weekly Challenge", it is a weekly programming puzzle with two parts, with a new pair of tasks each Monday. You can find it here: The Weekly Challenge The Weekly Challenge for the week of 2026-04-06 through 2026-04-12 is #368. The tasks for challenge #368 are as follows: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Task 368-1: Make it Bigger Submitted by: Mohammad Sajid Anwar You are given a given a string number and a character digit. Write a script to remove exactly one occurrence of the given character digit from the given string number, resulting in the number being maximised. Example #1: Input: $str = "15456", $char = "5" Output: "1546" Removing the second "5" is better because the digit following it (6) is greater than 5. In the first case, 5 was followed by 4 (a decrease), which makes the resulting number smaller. Example #2: Input: $str = "7332", $char = ...

For those not familiar with "The Weekly Challenge", it is a weekly programming puzzle with two parts, with a new pair of tasks each Monday. You can find it here: The Weekly Challenge The Weekly Challenge for the week of 2026-03-30 through 2026-04-05 is #367. The tasks for challenge #367 are as follows: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Task 367-1: Max Odd Binary Submitted by: Mohammad Sajid Anwar You are given a binary string that has at least one ‘1’. Write a script to rearrange the bits in such a way that the resulting binary number is the maximum odd binary number and return the resulting binary string. The resulting string can have leading zeros. Example 1 Input: $str = "1011" Output: "1101" Example 2 Input: $str = "100" Output: "001" Example 3 Input: $str = "111000" Output: "110001" Example 4 Input: $str = "0101" Output: "1001" Example 5 Input: $str =...

For those not familiar with "The Weekly Challenge", it is a weekly programming puzzle with two parts, with a new pair of tasks each Monday. You can find it here: The Weekly Challenge The Weekly Challenge for the week of 2026-03-23 through 2026-03-29 is #366. The tasks for challenge #366 are as follows: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Task 366-1: Count Prefixes Submitted by: Mohammad Sajid Anwar You are given an array of words and a string (contains only lowercase English letters). Write a script to return the number of words in the given array that are a prefix of the given string. ( # Example #1 input: [["a", "ap", "app", "apple", "banana"], "apple"], # Expected output: 4 # Example #2 input: [["cat", "dog", "fish"], "bird"], # Expected output: 0 # Example #3 input: [["hello", "he", "hell...

For those not familiar with "The Weekly Challenge", it is a weekly programming puzzle with two parts, with a new pair of tasks each Monday. You can find it here: The Weekly Challenge The Weekly Challenge for the week of 2026-03-16 through 2026-03-22 is #365. The tasks for challenge #365 are as follows: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Task 365-1: Alphabet Index Digit Sum Submitted by: Mohammad Sajid Anwar You are given a string $str consisting of lowercase English letters, and an integer $k. Write a script to convert a lowercase string into numbers using alphabet positions (a=1 … z=26), concatenate them to form an integer, then compute the sum of its digits repeatedly $k times, returning the final value. Example 1 input: $str = "abc", $k = 1 Expected output: 6 Example 2 input: $str = "az", $k = 2 Expected output: 9 Example 3 input: $str = "cat", $k = 1 Expected output: 6 Example 4 input: $str = "dog...