Day 13: Claw Contraption

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3 points
*

Python

Execution time: ~<1 millisecond (800 microseconds on my machine)

Good old school linear algebra from middle school. we can solve this really really fast. With minimal changes from part 1!

FastCode

[ paste ]

from time import perf_counter_ns
import string

def profiler(method):
    def wrapper_method(*args: any, **kwargs: any) -> any:
        start_time = perf_counter_ns()
        ret = method(*args, **kwargs)
        stop_time = perf_counter_ns() - start_time
        time_len = min(9, ((len(str(stop_time))-1)//3)*3)
        time_conversion = {9: 'seconds', 6: 'milliseconds', 3: 'microseconds', 0: 'nanoseconds'}
        print(f"Method {method.__name__} took : {stop_time / (10**time_len)} {time_conversion[time_len]}")
        return ret

    return wrapper_method

@profiler
def main(input_data):
    part1_total_cost = 0
    part2_total_cost = 0
    for machine in input_data:
        Ax,Ay,Bx,By,Px,Py = [ int(l[2:]) for l in machine.split() if l[-1] in string.digits ]
        y,r = divmod((Ay * Px - Ax * Py), (Ay * Bx - Ax * By))
        if r == 0:
            x,r = divmod(Px - Bx * y, Ax)
            if r == 0:
                part1_total_cost += 3*x + y
        y,r = divmod((Ay * (Px+10000000000000) - Ax * (Py+10000000000000)), (Ay * Bx - Ax * By))
        if r == 0:
            x,r = divmod((Px+10000000000000) - Bx * y, Ax)
            if r == 0:
                part2_total_cost += 3*x + y

    return part1_total_cost,part2_total_cost

if __name__ == "__main__":
    with open('input', 'r') as f:
        input_data = f.read().strip().replace(',', '').split('\n\n')
    part_one, part_two = main(input_data)
    print(f"Part 1: {part_one}\nPart 2: {part_two}")

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2 points

This is a really excellent, clean solution! Would you mind breaking down how the piece of linear algebra works (for a shmo like me who doesn’t remember that stuff frum school heh 😅)

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3 points

https://lemmy.world/comment/13950499

take the two equations, solve for y, and make sure y is fully divisible.

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2 points

It’s interesting that you’re not checking if the solution to x is a whole number. I guess the data doesn’t contain any counterexamples.

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1 point
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They do, if the remainder returned by divmod(…) wasn’t zero then it wouldn’t be divisble

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2 points

you are right, we solve for y, but I am confident that solving for x after y would yield the correct result as long as y is fully divisible.

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3 points
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we are solving for y first. If there is a y then x is found easily.

(Ax)*x + (Bx)*y = Px and (Ay)*x + (By)*y = Py

Because of Ax or Ay and Bx or By, lets pretend that they are not (A*x)*x and (A*y)*y for both. they are just names. could be rewritten as: (Aleft)*x + (Bleft)*y = Pleft and (Aright)*x + (Bright)*y = Pright

but I will keep them short. solving for y turns into this:

y = (Ay*Px - Ax*Py) / (Ay*Bx - Ax*By)

if mod of 1 is equal to 0 then there is a solution. We can be confident that x is also a solution, too. Could there be an edge case? I didn’t proof it, but it works flawlessly for my solution.

Thankfully, divmod does both division and mod of 1 at the same time.

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2 points
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Thank you so much for your explanation! I kind of found some clues looking up perp dot products & other vector math things, but this breaks it down very nicely.

I implemented your solution in rust, and part 2 failed by +447,761,194,259 (this was using signed 64-bit integers, i64). When I changed it to use signed 64 bit floating-point f64 and checked that the solution for x produces a whole number it worked.

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