Advent of Code 2017 in R: Day 1

My boyfriend recently introduced me to Advent of Code while I was in one of my “learn ALL of the things!” phases. Every year starting December 1st, new programming challenges are posted daily leading up to Christmas. They’re meant to be quick 5-10 minute challenges, so, wanting to test my programming skills, I figured why not try to do all of them in base R!

I went with base R because I know I can dplyr and stringr my way to victory with some of these challenges. I really want to force myself to really go back to basics and confirm that I have the knowledge to do these things on my own without Hadley Wickham‘s (very much appreciated in any other situation) assistance.

Since I’ve started, I’ve also seen a couple of other bloggers attempt to do these challenges in R so I’m really curious how my solutions will compare to theirs.

The first day of the challenge provides you with a string of numbers and asks you to sum all of the digits that match the next digit in a circular list, i.e. the digit after the last digit is the first digit.

My string was…

8231753674683997878179259195565332579493378483264978184143341284379682788518559178822225126625428318115396632681141871952894291898364781898929292614792884883249356728741993224889167928232261325123447569829932951268292953928766755779761837993812528527484487298117739869189415599461746944992651752768158611996715467871381527675219481185217357632445748912726487669881876129192932995282777848496561259839781188719233951619188388532698519298142112853776942545211859134185231768952888462471642851588368445761489225786919778983848113833773768236969923939838755997989537648222217996381757542964844337285428654375499359997792679256881378967852376848812795761118139288152799921176874256377615952758268844139579622754965461884862647423491918913628848748756595463191585555385849335742224855473769411212376446591654846168189278959857681336724221434846946124915271196433144335482787432683848594487648477532498952572515118864475621828118274911298396748213136426357769991314661642612786847135485969889237193822718111269561741563479116832364485724716242176288642371849569664594194674763319687735723517614962575592111286177553435651952853878775431234327919595595658641534765455489561934548474291254387229751472883423413196845162752716925199866591883313638846474321161569892518574346226751366315311145777448781862222126923449311838564685882695889397531413937666673233451216968414288135984394249684886554812761191289485457945866524228415191549168557957633386991931186773843869999284468773866221976873998168818944399661463963658784821796272987155278195355579386768156718813624559264574836134419725187881514665834441359644955768658663278765363789664721736533517774292478192143934318399418188298753351815388561359528533778996296279366394386455544446922653976725113889842749182361253582433319351193862788433113852782596161148992233558144692913791714859516653421917841295749163469751479835492713392861519993791967927773114713888458982796514977717987598165486967786989991998142488631168697963816156374216224386193941566358543266646516247854435356941566492841213424915682394928959116411457967897614457497279472661229548612777155998358618945222326558176486944695689777438164612198225816646583996426313832539918

My first thought was that I would need to separate this string such that each character was the element of an object, either a vector or a list. I kept things simple and started by just copy-pasting the string into R. I could import it as a .txt file or otherwise but I figured that was unnecessary for such a quick problem. I stored the string as a variable named input.

# Split string after each character.

input_split <- strsplit(input, "")

# As a result, input_split is a list with 1 element:
# a vector containing each character of input as an 
# element. Annoying. Let's unlist() it to extract
# *just* the vector.

char_vector <- unlist(input_split)

# The problem now is that if we are going to sum
# the elements of our string, we need them to be
# numeric and not characters. Easy enough...

num_vector <- as.numeric(char_vector)

# Now lets just initialize our sum...

num_sum = 0

# And use a loop...

for(i in 1:length(num_vector)){

  # If we have the last element of the input string, 
  # set the next number equal to the first element
  # of the string, else select element i + 1.
  next_num <- ifelse(i = length(num_vector), 
  				num_vector[1],
  				num_vector[i + 1])


  # If our current element is equal to the next element,
  # update the sum.
  if(num_vector[i] == next_num){

  	num_sum = num_sum + num_vector[i]

  }
}

num_sum

Our sum is 1390 which is correct, huzzah.

Continue reading Advent of Code 2017 in R: Day 1

Hello world!

Hello world! 

I started blogging back when I was a Master’s of Applied Statistics student making my way through some very heavy journal articles. It always took me a while to work my way through journal articles as I often found myself wanting to semi-prove all the results in a paper for myself. Having “wasted” an obscene amount of paper and time working these things out, I decided that I would attempt to translate these scribbles into complete notes… and so, Statisticelle was born!

Another big part of my learning process is applying what I’m reading or deriving to an actual data set. Having based my Master’s degree on clinical trial research and now working in industry, I don’t think that I can actually use/discuss the data relevant to my past research or career without breaking a few laws. However, I think this blog presents itself as a great opportunity to delve into the massive collections of open data now available. I’m going to make an effort to provide references to these data sets and any R code I used – even if no one uses it, I’m hoping that putting it out in the open will encourage me to be a more diligent statistician!

It’s been a while since I’ve written any blog posts but I’ve recently found myself staring at my statistics bookshelf, thinking that I really miss delving into new topics and working my way through all the messy bits. I’m not sure that anyone will really read this but on the off-chance that they do, I hope these blog posts are helpful and not a collection of misinformation! I am trying to understand these topics in a way that makes sense to me and I can only hope that I am doing so correctly. If you do find any errors, do not hesitate to let me know.

Anyways, that’s my mission statement in so many words. Part 2 – lets see how this turns out!