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RegEx Crossword

jimbly.github.io

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Re: RegEx Crossword

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't think there's a technical reason. I'd previously seen this site linked from here that does it slightly more traditionally: https://regexcrossword.com/

Lost interest on 3rd beginner puzzle when validation failed for multiple valid solutions.

What solutions were you trying?

As far as I can tell, the puzzle is fully constrained.

From the start, the bottom-left cell as well as the right column can be solved just from the starting hints, and then you can derive the top-left cell per the backreference.

In particular, you can reframe the right column's hint as (AB|OO|OR), and only one of those satisfies the bottom row's hint.

Re: RegEx Crossword

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just completed it, and can say with certainty that it is solvable by only taking into consideration two constraints at any given time, with the exception of 3 at just one point early on (and they were the easier constraints in the puzzle). That being said, the nature of regex means you kind of need to jump around as far as which constraints you combine.

I don't doubt that, and I don't doubt it's a good puzzle, especially if you're already familiar with the format. But since this is my first introduction to this kind of puzzle, I need some anchor points at the beginning so I feel like I have something to work off of. I'm not even asking for a whole row, just an easier set of known chars at the start of the round so I have a hint at which of the 39 constraints I shoul…

I did complete and enjoy it, but I'm both very competent with regex like you, but also big into sudoku variants (as in the youtube channel cracking the cryptic! [1]) so this felt like it was designed for me to enjoy. Considering it took me about half an hour, I'd expect someone who isn't into these kinds of odd puzzles already to basically have exactly your reaction.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/c/CrackingTheCryptic

Re: RegEx Crossword

#53
post #42

Right away the red and green hints are wrong. Either that or this puzzle used RegEx rules that contradict those I am familiar with. Either way, they lost my attention.

They seem to be accurate under all normal regex rules. Keep in mind that empty values are spaces and a full match is needed!

What does "full match" mean? Either it matches or it doesn't.

Re: RegEx Crossword

#54
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They seem to be accurate under all normal regex rules. Keep in mind that empty values are spaces and a full match is needed!

What does "full match" mean? Either it matches or it doesn't.

I think some people may have thought you just have to match any substring within it, so I was clarifying that the whole line has to be a match.

Re: RegEx Crossword

#56
post #42

Right away the red and green hints are wrong. Either that or this puzzle used RegEx rules that contradict those I am familiar with. Either way, they lost my attention.

They seem to be accurate under all normal regex rules. Keep in mind that empty values are spaces and a full match is needed!

.(C|HH)* should match against " " or against "A " or against "B" or against "ZZZZZZZ".

But this puzzle doesn't recognize any of those as valid.

Re: RegEx Crossword

#57
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "full match" mean? Either it matches or it doesn't.

I think some people may have thought you just have to match any substring within it, so I was clarifying that the whole line has to be a match.

Some people would be correct to think that. That is what those regexes mean. If you are secretly prepending a ^ and appending a $, then you are not using the regex displayed.

Re: RegEx Crossword

#58
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lost interest on 3rd beginner puzzle when validation failed for multiple valid solutions.

What solutions were you trying? As far as I can tell, the puzzle is fully constrained. From the start, the bottom-left cell as well as the right column can be solved just from the starting hints, and then you can derive the top-left cell per the backreference. In particular, you can reframe the right column's hint as (AB|OO|OR), and only one of those satisfies the bottom row's hint.

Not so.

Something as simple as "OO\nDO" should be valid. But also "OO\nDD" and myriad other solutions.

Re: RegEx Crossword

#59
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They seem to be accurate under all normal regex rules. Keep in mind that empty values are spaces and a full match is needed!

.(C|HH)* should match against " " or against "A " or against "B" or against "ZZZZZZZ". But this puzzle doesn't recognize any of those as valid.

That's not the case... .(C|HH)* matches with single character followed by any number of C's or HH's. So " " or "B" would work but in the puzzle the full line has to match so those aren't possible

Re: RegEx Crossword

#60
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because it's not empty string in the puzzle, it's 8 spaces. (and on top of that, we're doing a full match.)

8 spaces also matches. I don't know what you mean by a full match. Do you mean that you are using a different RegEx than the one displayed?

I assume by 'full match' they mean:

- the pattern is found in the input

- the start of the match is the start of the input

- the end of the match is the end of the input

By this definition, 8 spaces does not match the pattern.

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