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Robbie Hatley’s Solutions, in Perl, for The Weekly Challenge #388 (“Dyck Words” and “Secret Santa”)

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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 2026-08-24 through 2026-08-30 is #388. The tasks for challenge #388 are as follows: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Task 388-1: Dyck Words Submitted by: Mohammad S Anwar A Dyck Word of order $n is a string of length 2x$n consisting of $n ‘U’ (Up) characters and $n ‘D’ (Down) characters such that no initial prefix of the string contains more ‘D’s than ‘U’s. Write a script to return a list of all valid Dyck words of length 2x$n, sorted in lexicographical (alphabetical) order. I first generate likely candidate equivalent integers (with the correct number of binary digits, beginning with 1 and ending with 0). I then check each candidate to see if it actually is a Dyck number. For each Dyck number, I sprintf it as a binar...
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Robbie Hatley’s Solutions, in Perl, for The Weekly Challenge #387 (“Rearrange Binary String” and “Atoms Count”)

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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 2026-08-17 through 2026-08-23 is #387. The tasks for challenge #387 are as follows: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Task 387-1: Rearrange Binary String Submitted by: Mohammad Sajid Anwar You are given a binary string. Write a script to re-arrange the string that all occurrences of “01” are simultaneously replaced with “10” until no occurrences of “01” exist. Return the total steps needed. I'll use a s///g operator in a while loop and count how many times it runs. Robbie Hatley's Perl Solution to The Weekly Challenge 387-1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Task 387-2: Atoms Count Submitted by: Mohammad Sajid Anwar You are given a chemical formula with element...
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Robbie Hatley’s Solutions, in Perl, for The Weekly Challenge #386 (“Reverse Base” and “Rational Numbers”)

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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 2026-08-10 through 2026-08-16 is #386. The tasks for challenge #386 are as follows: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Task 386-1: Reverse Base Submitted by: Mohammad Sajid Anwar You are given a string representing a number, and an integer specifying the base of that representation. Write a function to convert this string to an integer. (For bases greater than 10, use characters A-Z, a-z, + and / in that order.) This is basically a repeat of 384, so I'll just re-use that solution, which uses the base conversion routines in Math::BigInt. Though, I'll have to make some minor tweaks to allow for the collation sequence specified in 386. Robbie Hatley's Perl Solution to The Weekly Challenge 386-1 ...
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Robbie Hatley’s Solutions, in Perl, for The Weekly Challenge #385 (“Uncommon Words” and “Outermost Parentheses”)

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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 2026-08-03 through 2026-08-09 is #385. The tasks for challenge #385 are as follows: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Task 385-1: Uncommon Words Submitted by: Mohammad Sajid Anwar You are given two sentences. Write a script to return a list of all uncommon words. Order is not important. Judging by the answers given to the examples, I see that the word "uncommon" is being used to mean "used once only", not "not in-common between sentences". So I use a hash to keep track of total occurrences of words, and I return only those words which occur exactly once. Robbie Hatley's Perl Solution to The Weekly Challenge 385-1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~...
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Robbie Hatley’s Solutions, in Perl, for The Weekly Challenge #384 (“Base N” and “Special Binary Substrings”)

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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 2026-07-27 through 2026-08-02 is #384. The tasks for challenge #384 are as follows: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Task 384-1: Base N Submitted by: Mohammad Sajid Anwar You are given a number and a base integer. Write a script to convert the given number in the given base integer. To solve this problem, I use the excellent base conversion routines provided by "Math::BigInt", augmented by Gnu's "GMP" library, which will provide both blazing speed and unlimited precision. (I usually "roll my own" in these challenges, but not this time; it would be an insult to the hard-working authors of "Math::BigInt" and "GMP" for me to NOT use their products in a case where they...
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Robbie Hatley’s Solutions, in Perl, for The Weekly Challenge #383 (“Similar List” and “Nearest RGB”)

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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 2026-07-20 through 2026-07-26 is #383. If anyone is wondering what happened to 377 through 382, I've been quite busy the last two months adjusting to my life as a "newly-retired person", so I haven't had the attention for The Perl Weekly Challenge Club. But after a 42-day absence, I'm back! I may eventually solve the skipped challenges and post my results here, but for now, here is Challenge 383. The tasks for challenge #383 are as follows: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Task 383-1: Similar List Submitted by: Mohammad Sajid Anwar You are given two lists of strings and a list of "similar-words groups". Write a script to find out if the two word lists are "similar" with the help ...
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Robbie Hatley’s Solutions, in Perl, for The Weekly Challenge #376 (“Chessboard Squares” and “Doubled Words”)

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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 2026-06-01 through 2026-06-07 is #376. The tasks for challenge #376 are as follows: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Task 376-1: Chessboard Squares Submitted by: Mohammad Sajid Anwar Write a script to determine if two chess-board squares (specified by standard chess notation) have the same color. To solve this problem, I query whether the sum of the first coordinate pair and the sum of the second coordinate pair have the same modulo 2. Robbie Hatley's Perl Solution to The Weekly Challenge 376-1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Task 376-2: Doubled Words Submitted by: Matt Martini You are given a string (which may contain embedded newlines) which is taken from a pag...
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