Advent of Code 2024 Day 19 (BaseA Style)

[AlteryxCommunityTeam]

Discussion thread for day 19 of the Advent of Code - https://adventofcode.com/2024/day/19

[cgoodman3]

Spoiler

Using string functions to check if the towel is at the end (not sure why I worked backward instead of snipping suitable options off the front).

IF Substring([data],Length([data])-length([towel]),length([towel])) = [towel] 
THEN left([data],Length([data])-Length([towel])) 
ELSE [data]
ENDIF​

I get a 1m23s runtime for both parts, so expect you could do some more pruning.

Iterative macroMain workflow

[Tokimatsu]

Done.

Spoiler

For faster comparison, the first letters of the towel and pattern were taken out and joined together.

[PangHC]

done.

[kelsey_kincaid]

I got stuck on one approach for awhile before taking a step away to reconsider it. I started with a macro-less Part 1 that I'm pretty proud of!

Spoiler

I was able to use RegEx to determine which Designs had a possible solution, and was really gung-ho about using RegEx to solve Part 2. That didn't work out, so I pivoted to appending and checking patterns.

I'm still curious to know if there is a viable macro-less solution for Part 2 though!