Day 24: Crossed Wires

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FAQ

2 points
*

Haskell, programmatic solution

I spent an entire day on this because I didnā€™t write a unit test to check my ā€œswap outputsā€ function, which effectively did nothing.

In any case: the approach (which may be more interesting than the code, I know people were interested) involved probing the addition circuit with some example additions - that is, I wrote something thatā€™d let me give alternative inputs from x & y and compute the result using the circuit. I then gave it some simple pairs of values thatā€™d exercise the add and carry bits (ie, pairs chosen from {i << n, n <- {1..43}, i <- {1, 3}}). That gave me some breaking trials.

Because the errors were relatively sparse, I then scanned over pairs of outputs, swapping those that didnā€™t introduce a data dependency and checking (a) that no new errors were introduced over the trial sets, (b) for any reduction in the number of errors found. I got a bunch fo outputs like this:

swap of ("ccp","mnh") improves matters
bad trial count reduced from 346 to 344

which found the pairs for me. The search could be improved by more carefully tying the probe inputs to the outputsā€™ dependencies (ie, if the first error comes from the (xi, yi) input bits, then look for swaps of the dependencies introduced by zi) - but in any case, it finds the answer. Phew.

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2 points

Rust + Pen and Paper

Yikers. Part 2 took a while, staring at this diagram for hours. Eventually I noticed that each of these blocks has two pairs of (XOR, AND) gates sharing the same inputs (and inputs arenā€™t changed). So I matched up these pairs based on a distance metric of how much needs to be swapped to fit together. This helped me identify 4 blocks with errors, the rest was solved using pen and paper (one block is missing as it became apparent at that point):

There is also some code, but do yourself and me a favor and donā€™t look at it. While it does turn up the correct solution, it probably wonā€™t with any other input, especially not the examples.

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1 point

Oh my Kernigan, that was stressful. Really worried about not finishing there.

Considered several approaches, the coolest of which would have been to test individual bits, propagate ā€˜suspicionā€™, etc, but it seemed too tricky.

Eventually I needed to go do something other than worry about not finishing so I started writing a validator for the adder structure. Just a couple of rules later I had found 4 faults already and managed to write automated fixups for them!

This means my solver is quite specific to my input but it can potentially be made more complete and I didnā€™t ā€˜cheatā€™ by hardcoding manual graph analysis.

Code
#include "common.h"

/*
 * The approach behind part 2 was to essentially write a bunch of
 * validation rules for the structure of the adder, and then writing
 * fixups for problems it would find. That means it's likely quite
 * tailored to my input, but at least it's not hardcoding manual graph
 * analysis.
 */

enum { W_NULL, W_OFF, W_ON };

struct wire;

struct wire {
	struct wire *in[2];
	char name[4];
	char op; 		/* [A]ND, [O]R, [X]OR */
	int8_t val;		/* W_NULL, W_OFF, W_ON */
};

static struct wire wires[320];
static struct wire *zs[46], *swapped[8];
static int nw, nsw;

static struct wire *
get_wire(const char *name)
{
	int i;

	for (i=0; i<nw; i++)
		if (!strcmp(name, wires[i].name))
			return &wires[i];

	assert(nw < (int)LEN(wires));
	assert(strlen(name) < LEN(wires[i].name));

	snprintf(wires[nw].name, sizeof(wires[nw].name), "%s", name);
	return &wires[nw++];
}


static int
cmp_wires(const void *a, const void *b)
{
	struct wire * const *wa = a;
	struct wire * const *wb = b;

	return strcmp((*wa)->name, (*wb)->name);
}

static int
eval(struct wire *wire)
{
	int in1,in2;

	if (wire->val)
		return wire->val == W_ON;

	assert(wire->in[0]);
	assert(wire->in[1]);

	in1 = eval(wire->in[0]);
	in2 = eval(wire->in[1]);

	wire->val = W_OFF + (
	    wire->op=='A' ? in1 && in2 :
	    wire->op=='O' ? in1 || in2 :
	    wire->op=='X' ? in1 != in2 : (assert(!"bad op"), -1));

	return wire->val == W_ON;
}

static void
swap(struct wire *a, struct wire *b)
{
	struct wire tmp;

	//printf("swapping %s and %s\n", a->name, b->name);

	tmp = *a;

	a->op = b->op;
	a->in[0] = b->in[0];
	a->in[1] = b->in[1];

	b->op = tmp.op;
	b->in[0] = tmp.in[0];
	b->in[1] = tmp.in[1];

	assert(nsw+2 <= (int)LEN(swapped));
	swapped[nsw++] = a;
	swapped[nsw++] = b;
}

static struct wire *
find_z_xor(int bit)
{
	struct wire *xy_xor;
	int i;

	for (i=0; i<nw; i++) {
		 /* must be a XOR */
		if (wires[i].op != 'X')
			continue;

		 /* with an input XOR */
		xy_xor = wires[i].in[0]->op == 'X' ? wires[i].in[0] :
		         wires[i].in[1]->op == 'X' ? wires[i].in[1] :
		         NULL;
		if (!xy_xor)
			continue;

		 /* connected to the X and Y */
		if (xy_xor->in[0]->name[0] != 'x' &&
		    xy_xor->in[0]->name[0] != 'y')
			continue;

		 /* with the same bit number */
		if (atoi(xy_xor->in[0]->name+1) != bit)
			continue;

		return &wires[i];
	}

	return NULL;
}

static struct wire *
find_xy_and(int bit)
{
	int i;

	for (i=0; i<nw; i++) {
		 /* must be AND */
		if (wires[i].op != 'A')
			continue;

		 /* must have XY inputs */
		if ((wires[i].in[0]->name[0] != 'x'  ||
		     wires[i].in[1]->name[0] != 'y') &&
		    (wires[i].in[0]->name[0] != 'y'  ||
		     wires[i].in[1]->name[0] != 'x'))
			continue;
		
		 /* with the right bit number */
		if (atoi(wires[i].in[0]->name+1) != bit ||
		    atoi(wires[i].in[0]->name+1) != bit)
			continue;
		
		return &wires[i];
	}

	return NULL;
}

static void
fsck_carry_or(struct wire *or, int bit)
{
	struct wire *wire;
	int i;

	 /* both inputs must be AND; no fixup if neither */
	assert(
	    or->in[0]->op == 'A' ||
	    or->in[1]->op == 'A');

	for (i=0; i<2; i++) {
		if (or->in[i]->op == 'A')
			continue;

		//printf("carry OR parent %s not AND\n", or->in[i]->name);

		 /* only have fixup for the XY AND */
		assert(
		    or->in[!i]->in[0]->name[0] != 'x' &&
		    or->in[!i]->in[0]->name[0] != 'y');

		wire = find_xy_and(bit);
		assert(wire);
		swap(or->in[i], wire);
	}
}

static void
fsck_z(struct wire *z)
{
	struct wire *wire, *carry_or;
	int bit;

	assert(z->name[0] == 'z');

	bit = atoi(z->name+1);

	 /* first bit is very different */
	if (!bit)
		return;

	 /* for the final bit, Z is the carry OR */
	if (!zs[bit+1]) {
		 /* no fixup if it isn't */
		assert(z->op == 'O');

		fsck_carry_or(z, bit-1);
		return;
	}

	 /* must be a XOR */
	if (z->op != 'X') {
		//printf("Z %s isn't XOR\n", z->name);
		wire = find_z_xor(bit);
		assert(wire);
		swap(z, wire);
	}

	 /* bit 2 and up must have a carry OR */
	if (bit > 1) {
		carry_or =
		    z->in[0]->op == 'O' ? z->in[0] :
		    z->in[1]->op == 'O' ? z->in[1] : NULL;
		assert(carry_or);
		fsck_carry_or(carry_or, bit-1);
	}
}

int
main(int argc, char **argv)
{
	struct wire *wire;
	char buf[64], *rest, *lf, *name1,*name2, *opstr;
	uint64_t p1=0;
	int bit, i;

	if (argc > 1)
		DISCARD(freopen(argv[1], "r", stdin));

	while ((rest = fgets(buf, sizeof(buf), stdin))) {
		if (!strchr(buf, ':'))
			break;

		wire = get_wire(strsep(&rest, ":"));
		wire->val = W_OFF + atoi(rest);

	}

	while ((rest = fgets(buf, sizeof(buf), stdin))) {
		if ((lf = strchr(buf, '\n')))
			*lf = '\0';

		name1 = strsep(&rest, " ");
		opstr = strsep(&rest, " ");
		name2 = strsep(&rest, " ");
		strsep(&rest, " ");

		wire = get_wire(rest);
		wire->in[0] = get_wire(name1);
		wire->in[1] = get_wire(name2);
		wire->op = opstr[0];
	}

	for (i=0; i<nw; i++)
		if (wires[i].name[0] == 'z') {
			bit = atoi(&wires[i].name[1]);
			assert(bit >= 0);
			assert(bit < (int)LEN(zs));
			zs[bit] = &wires[i];
		}

	for (i=0; i < (int)LEN(zs); i++)
		if (zs[i])
			p1 |= (uint64_t)eval(zs[i]) << i;

	for (i=0; i < (int)LEN(zs); i++)
		if (zs[i])
			fsck_z(zs[i]);

	qsort(swapped, nsw, sizeof(*swapped), cmp_wires);

	printf("24: %"PRIu64, p1);

	for (i=0; i<nsw; i++)
		printf(i ? ",%s" : " %s", swapped[i]->name);

	putchar('\n');
	return 0;
}

https://codeberg.org/sjmulder/aoc/src/branch/master/2024/c/day24.c

Btw, spending some time on getting Graphviz output right did make studying the structure much easier!

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1 point

I fiddled for ages to get nice graphviz output, that looks a lot nicer

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1 point
*

Haskell

For completenessā€™ sake. I actually solved part 2 by looking at the structure with Graphviz and checking the input manually for errors. So the code here merely replicates the checks I was doing by hand.

solution
import Control.Arrow
import Control.Monad
import Data.Bifoldable
import Data.Bits
import Data.List
import Data.Map (Map)
import Data.Map qualified as Map
import Data.Maybe
import Data.Set (Set)
import Data.Set qualified as Set
import Text.Printf

data Op = AND | OR | XOR deriving (Read, Show, Eq)

readInput :: String -> (Map String Int, Map String (Op, (String, String)))
readInput s =
  let (inputs, gates) = second (drop 1) $ break null $ lines s
   in ( Map.fromList $ map (break (== ':') >>> (id *** read . drop 2)) inputs,
        Map.fromList $ map (words >>> \[a, op, b, _, o] -> (o, (read op, (a, b)))) gates
      )

evalNetwork :: Map String Int -> Map String (Op, (String, String)) -> Maybe Int
evalNetwork inputs gates = fromBits <$> getOutput signals
  where
    getOutput = traverse snd . takeWhile (("z" `isPrefixOf`) . fst) . Map.toDescList
    fromBits = foldl' (\a b -> (a `shiftL` 1) .|. b) 0
    signals = Map.union (Just <$> inputs) $ Map.mapWithKey getSignal gates
    getSignal w (op, (a, b)) = doGate op <$> join (signals Map.!? a) <*> join (signals Map.!? b)
    doGate AND = (.&.)
    doGate OR = (.|.)
    doGate XOR = xor

findError :: [(String, (Op, (String, String)))] -> Maybe (String, String)
findError gates = findGate AND ("x00", "y00") >>= go 1 . fst
  where
    go i carryIn = do
      let [x, y, z] = map (: printf "%02d" (i :: Int)) ['x', 'y', 'z']
      xor1 <- fst <$> findGate XOR (x, y)
      and1 <- fst <$> findGate AND (x, y)
      let layer2 = findGates (carryIn, xor1) ++ findGates (carryIn, and1)
      xorGate2 <- find ((== XOR) . fst . snd) layer2
      andGate2 <- find ((== AND) . fst . snd) layer2
      let xor2 = fst xorGate2
          and2 = fst andGate2
      orGate <-
        find
          ( \(_, (op, (a, b))) ->
              op == OR && any (`elem` [a, b]) [xor1, and1, xor2, and2]
          )
          gates
      msum
        [ checkIs xor1 =<< otherInput carryIn xorGate2,
          checkIs z xor2,
          go (succ i) (fst orGate)
        ]
    checkIs p q = (p, q) <$ guard (p /= q)
    otherInput x (_, (_, (a, b)))
      | a == x = Just b
      | b == x = Just a
      | otherwise = Nothing
    findGates (a, b) = filter (\(_, (_, ins)) -> ins `elem` [(a, b), (b, a)]) gates
    findGate op = find ((== op) . fst . snd) . findGates

part2 = sort . concatMap biList . unfoldr go . Map.assocs
  where
    go gates = (\p -> (p, first (exchange p) <$> gates)) <$> findError gates
    exchange (a, b) c
      | c == a = b
      | c == b = a
      | otherwise = c

main = do
  (inputs, gates) <- readInput <$> readFile "input24"
  print . fromJust $ evalNetwork inputs gates
  putStrLn . intercalate "," $ part2 gates
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2 points
*

Javascript

Part one was easy, though despite starting at midnight I only placed 1786 for part one. I think my tendency to want to do OOP makes it take longerā€¦

Part twoā€¦ Well, I figured it was some sort of binary circuit for trying to add binary numbers. So I hoped that the sum of the x registers and the y registers was the expected result of simulating the circuit like in part one. I later verified that it is the expected result.

I didnā€™t want to try and manually figure out the bad outputs, coffee wasnā€™t helping, I wanted sleep. So I uhā€¦ I wrote logic to randomly create swaps. And then just hoped RNG got me covered. To help my chances, I ran it on 8 different processes.

When I woke up in the morning I discovered 8 stopped processes, each with ā€œa solutionā€ that was different. Turns out, if you just randomly swap wires at some point you get a system that outputs the desired result - but only because you sufficiently screwed it up more to produce the expected result, even if the system itself would not work for other input.

I could probably change the registers to another value, run it, and see if they match, thus ruling out an incorrect set of swaps causing a correct result with the original binary inputs. But at this point I just decided to do it the manual way following advice on here. My brain is fried, Iā€™m stepping away to take a shower and get ready to visit family.

I had really hoped the bruteforce would work, I modified the bruteforce to run even after it finds a match and Iā€™ll let it run while Iā€™m gone today and see if RNG produces any correct result at some point - I just fear the exponential answer timeout will prevent me from submitting these correctly incorrect combinations lol. I might modify it later with my theory above and just run it on a server indefinitely and see if it produces the correct result eventually.

https://blocks.programming.dev/Zikeji/9e4d6e81595d4845b88cf98eb91852d8

Edit:

Created a raw multithreaded bruteforce variant: topaz

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