JohnLM

Update on my progress. . . You guys can do this! I have no doubt! I know you all can figure this out, lickady-split or a few minutes, but I am not in your category. I am just a lowly hobbiest at best. Unfortunately, I am no component expert, nor am I am Pro at Pascal programming, let alone OOP and all. I am just a casual guy who codes small Windows utilities and other fun and interesting things. Occasionally I will try and learn OOP and component anything but I do not get very far, as I am a very slow learner. Anyway. I have looked into the suggestions here, and also my own searches. I found some resources and spent a great deal of time trying to understand them and then build them, but to no avail. I am just a complete failure in these advanced areas. For instance, in one resource (web search) I did find a routine that shows how to pull properties from all components on the form. And in another resource (web search) I found another routine showing how to pull properties similarly but slitely less detail. And yet in another resource showing similar, I can pull and narrow down to just tmemo's properties, which is just what I was looking for as a start. And then, in another resource, I found where I could: pull the properties of a tmemo and show it in another memo and make changes to the properties in that memo and the routine would show a memo with the changed state. But, I could not get it to copy from another memo, its properties because it would issue an error: "memo has no parent window" and other errors as well. I tried many scenarios of code ideas but to no avail. There is one more resource that I found (from the lazarus website) to try out, the next time I come back from a break from this endeavor. As for now and after three very long days and nights and many many hours, so many hours, of trying to figure this out, I am giving this up. I am taking a break and going back to other projects. Thank you all for your suggestions.

delete..

AoC 2024 Day 23 - LAN Party - part 1 solved using Delphi XE7 I tweaked it a little by adding Color and Bold to the matched text. In this build, the first letter or two-letter code can be entered to search for matches. The left side pane is the original text feed from the website. I added the line numbers. The right side pane is the output results of the matches.

I liked the Day 19 and 23 puzzles. They were easy to solve, but 19 was solved while I was at work while I was walking out into one of my isles to pack out products and where it came to me, but getting it out in code is still a challenge. I know what I have to do but coding it is a real challenge. And as for 23, I did solve it in around 12 minutes, but I found a "cosmetic" bug in the output and I am trying to fix that. Both of these are just part 1.

Note, in my previous post above, that the video I was talking about was for Day 20, not Day 23.

re: Day-23 puzzle -- Note, I am not complaining but giving my observations thus far. I don't know. I mean, it took me a moment to read through the instructions, about 1m:48s. If I added that to my final time it took me to solve that puzzle, then it was 14 minutes to solve. I was thinking 12 minutes and thought I could have made that Leaderboard--just joking. And that includes the building of the app, which I over-do too much in, everytime. Oh well. I am usually pretty quick at thinking for a solution and then writing down (building) the code. Well, there was a least two puzzles that I did solve. And sometimes I will solve a puzzle during the coding part as I am building and working out the code, it may come to me. But then I find issues or I don't quite like it, etc. etc.. I believe that the languages those people are using are a lot more sugar-coated in solving the puzzles in AoC2024. Take for example, Day 20's puzzle. I watched most of this YT video: "tWhwcORztSY" and saw how supper quick this person was at solving it, not to mention his detailed step-by-step description of how he was solving different parts and how fast he was writing out the code. I mean, the guy sounded like he wrote the puzzle! Now mind you, I was not trying to solve that puzzle. Reading through that puzzle part-way was enough to tell me I would never solve it at the time I was reading it. I still believe that today, even after watching a video of it. If you look at the Leaderboard for Day 1's puzzle, you will see a time reading of "1) Dec 01 00:00:04 - qianxyz (AoC++)". No way anyone could complete it after reading, writing and submitting in 4 seconds. That's got to be 4 minutes. I believe that the time layout I showed in my last post for "00:00:21" is: Days/Hours/Minutes. As much as I could not solve most of these puzzles--and that's okay--I have enjoyed trying to solve them, to date. I am still trying to solve some, while others are on the back-burner and I will eventually get back to those. I have very much enjoyed this adventure. It gave me a chance to challenge myself and enjoy each day's puzzles. I looked forward to each puzzle with antisipation every day, with only two days/puzzles left.

Looking at the stats in the Leaderboard for AoC 2024 Day 23 'LAN Party' -- does the time completion listed below mean he finished in 21 minutes ? 1) Dec 23 00:00:21 ChristophGreger

Because I have arthritis in my fingers, they can be twitchy at times, and during debugging I can go past the point I want to debug and when that happens, other Units open up and I get lost and loose my focus. Its become quite irritating. Say I am begging within the scope of a tbutton, and there may be 7 lines of code. I don't want the debugging to continue outside that range or else it will continue loading various Units and that is creating extra work for me and causing me frustration. procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject); begin 1 2 -- debugging started via F8. 3 4 5 6 7 -- stop debugging after this. so if i press F8, debugging will not continue to step past it 7. 8 9 end;

I am currently using Delphi XE7. I forgot to mention that. Apparently, there is no switch to turn off debugging after a certain point within a given code block that I may be currently working on. I saw this: {$D-} But that only works before a routine/function/procedure call. I can't insert it between some code within a routine. And it doesn't seem to work when I tried. Oh well. I guess I can only do one thing that will help a little, and that is to use the following idea shown below using i:=i; multiple times, that in the event I do over-press the F8 key, I will catch it in time in order to stop myself from pressing F8 any further. procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject); var i: integer; begin 1 * 2 -- begin debug breakpoint - i have a breakpoint set it. and i press F8 to setp through the lines of code. . . 3 4 5 6 7 -- end debug breakpoint . . .until i reach this line, i want the debugging to stop 8 9 i:=i; 11 i:=i; 12 i:=i; 13 i:=i; 14 i:=i; 15 end;

@corneliusdavid, ah, now I understand, since I am not a member of AoC, nor registered participant. I am an outsider just playing along as best I can. Also, I found this website: https://jeroenheijmans.github.io/advent-of-code-surveys/ I did not see any Delphi / Pascal language mentioned. Looks like there are very few people (including myself--day1 and 2 puzzles solved) in this language tackling AoC.

Sorry Cornelius, I don't understand you point on "input file". what is it? And for different users? Anyway. I was not sharing my source code, if that is what you mean. Actually, I would be ashamed to show it. Also, I see no reason why I can not show my output log or report or final outcome, not when the website already shows it in their instructions. >> Also, don't post the puzzle text input I don't understand what you are saying. I'm getting ready to work on the Day-03 puzzle--I took a cellphone screenshot of the instructions and read it last night at work--It seems easy enough. Just some parsing of the string. And I read (on reddit) that people were getting double-lines and were processing it wrong. And, no--I am not looking for answer on how to solve it or any other puzzle. I would not read those if they are available, though those are in another language that I don't understand, nor how to read anyway. Also, question: where are the second parts I keep reading about? I read bits here and there about part 1 and part 2. But I don't see them in any of the days I have seen aready, 1-3. Or do you have to be at the website at a certain time to see it? I don't know.

Update. . . I have finally completed the Day-02 puzzle. I started on these puzzles a week later, so I am behind, not to mention, slow. Because I am a thorough type person, for me, the tricky parts were in determining what items were: Increasing, Decreasing, Inc/Dec, or the Same (c for 'center'), and capturing the value amounts for the Inc/Dec etc., and then reporting those as detail in the final report. I just need to clean up the output view and make a few changes to the UI and Report view. Hopefully, I will show the results later today.

No, no sorting. But I did spot another error. But is not a bug. I miss-used the Random() function. I should have set it as Random(1,9) and not Random(9). Because of that, I am getting 0's included in the randomized lists in the report for Day-1's puzzle. The 0's were not in the instructions on the website. A slight oversite on my part. But, it still passes as a success.

Re: Day 2 puzzle I believe I have that part worked out. This is not code, it is just my way for me to keep track of the logic for Inc/Dec directions, visually and mentally. { given the array for levels [1 3 2 4 5 ] 1 and 3 = low to high is increase (RT) 3 and 2 = high to low is decrease (LT) } But there are twists as you said. And I believe I am in that twist. . . 3 hours 10 minutes into this. I keep a timer on when I start/stop/pause work via the Android clock app. My skills in if/then Logic are poor. But as long as I meet up with success, I will survive another project. What is part 2 that you are talking about? Another puzzle? I don't look at other puzzles until I have completed the current one I am working on.

Yes, I agree about the solutional changes. But I sometimes veer past it in my hair-pulling while debugging alternative solutions. Oh, I just started Day-2, half an hour ago. I've got up to the point of generating the random values for filling in the levels list and a few other tid-bits. And, now about to start the real challenge of how to determine what level(s) are safe and unsafe. Should take me many more hours to solve. . . can't wait!

@Anders Melander, thanks to your code above (Posted December 23, 2021) and a slight modification to allow me to use images screenshotted to the clipboard, I was able to create my first animated GIF file in Delphi XE7.

Okay, I found a way to create animated GIF files in Delphi XE7 via TGIFImage, thanks to @Anders Melander for his how-to codesnippet in another post here, where I modified the code slightly in order to create the GIF file via images I screenshotted (ctrl+alt+prt sc) to clipboard and to the delphi app. I set the animation (5 frames) to a limit of 5 iterations only, then it stops. Advent of Code 2024 - Day 01 - Historian Hysteria - in Delphi XE7 - completed LF and RT are random lists of numbers generated DST is the list of results from the LF and RT lists, and Total Distance is the summation of DST.

Ahh, I just spotted a typo. Should be RT, not RF. Anyway. . . I forgot to explain my resolve of this puzzle. Column LF and RT are randomly generated, then calculated in the DST (distance) column via the [Generate] which generates random numbers for both LF/RT columns, and then I calculate (I sum each value in DST) the Total Distance (in the DST column) below those columns. I should have labeled that section. Oh well.. I can't do everything perfectly! 😞

I set the animation (5 frames) to a limit of 5 iterations only, then it stops. ** I removed the gif because it was tacky to see a watermark from a trialware. I will investigate an alternate method to create my own, maybe delphi can do it, just need to figure out how to accept a list of bitmapt/png images, delay and loop and save as .gif file.

I was hoping to show a screenshot snippet of my XE7 version of Day-1's puzzle as proof. I mean, I think some of you may like it. As soon as I figure out something with the image, I will post it here. I haven't looked at any of the videos posted here because I don't want to know what the puzzles are until I tackle them as I can if I can. Also, I just read Day-2's puzzle. It is interesting. I have some ideas racing through my head already, and once you see my first puzzle you may be able to figure it out, but I work the night shift and I need to get some sleep.

I do not normally do these types of challenges because I am no professional. But, I did an Excel version of Day-1's puzzle fairly quickly. It took a few minutes without any programming involved, so I guess it does not count. But I did an XE7 (windows) version, today, though it took me many hours to complete. I don't have those Services listed on the website, so there is nothing to see from me, source code wise, over there. And, I am proud to say that, "I did it!" for Day-1's puzzle.

I want to create or calculate a unique 8-digit ID (checksum/hash/etc) for variable-sized texts. I am not sure the ID has to be a certain limited length depending on the length of the actual text, but I would like the ID to be as small as possible. I definitely don't want a GUID. EXAMPLE: Name comment ------ -------------------- car neon. sumvac is not my favorite any more but i do like the cooler autom car neon. RESULT: ID Name comment -------- ------ ------------ AT1UW72Z car neon. 0B1UR7PY sumvac is not my favorite any more but i do like the cooler autom AT1UW72Z car neon. I want to add RESULT to a database table. Duplicates are okay since I can use a query to remove them from a query/report run. Or, I can remove them completely (at a later time) and just have unique table entries. But in general, duplicate entries are acceptable. Is there anything already included in Delphi that supports this? I will be working in XE7 and/or 12.2 IDE's. Thanks in advanced.

Solved. . . Thanks @FPiette, your's confirmed what I was getting from another version I was testing, though different values, but the same outcome.

@FPiette I did consider your suggestion, but I could not understand it. I tried a second time after your last post and I still could not understand it, how to use it, etc. I think that "buf" is throwing me off. I'm not that good at pointers. I thought buf was an array and was to hold some bytes, so I tryined to move the string into it and, well, I just don't have the skills for this. I'm an amature programmer, and this is my hobby, and I'm not some wiz-kid know-it-all. So, I'm giving it up your suggestion per your link. its 5:32am and I work the night shift (truck unloading work) and I'm exhausted. However, I found another resource for crc32 and tried that, and it seems to be working. But again, I'm exhausted. I'll play around with it much later. I need sleep.

PS; To clarify: The string (edit1.text) can be any length, from 1-char up to 255-char in length. But the hash value, once converted to a Hex string, I want to be as short as possible, not 255-char. That is for the edit1.text. I want the hash value to be around 8 to 12 chars if possible. But if not, then I want to at least "pad" with zero's.