Advent of Code 2024 Day 4 (BaseA Style)

[AlteryxCommunityTeam]

Discussion thread for day 4 of the Advent of Code - https://adventofcode.com/2024/day/4

[CoG]

Whoo! I enjoyed this tremendously. I will include a more thorough explanation for my approach below later (in the form of a YouTube video), but for now here is my solution.

Solution Screenshot (Updated to Simplify):

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Tool Golf V3 Solution (10 Tools per Part):

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Tool Golf V4 (Part 1: 6 Tools, Part 2: 7 Tools):

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[ScottLewis]

That was a really neat one. Similar to some of the harder ones last year, but with fewer complications. Part 2 seemed easier than Part 1, though that could just be having done Part 1 first. Interesting to see the different ways people deal with this.

Sharing file this time because it's pretty and I like the solution. Those have not both been true on previous days.

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I approach graph type problems by transforming the data in to row/column/value triplets. You can then map movement in a direction to a simple 1 point change in row/column and get a new value by re-joining with the original data set. In this example, we rejoin with the next 3 (XMAS) or with one in each diagonal (X-MAS). Part 1 requires generate rows to get all the possible directions.
I think I could have left out the filter to throw out out-of-bounds values and let the joins do that but that's the sort of thing that causes errors in harder problems so I like to keep up good habits. Conversely, hard coding the maximum row/column count is a terrible habit that we allow as a concession to speed. In a production world this would be join with count of rows and filter on row<=Maxrow.
 

[PangHC]

have to use macro this time. diagonal is hard to do without macro

and luckily I save some macro last few years. like split to x and y. and generate the adjacent location. 

it save some time to re-build it. 

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part1: skipped for vertical and horizon. diagonal I use filter to find the beginning cells and use macro to search for next cells (move up or move down to right)

part2: easier than part1, haha. 
filter for data value "A", get adjacent, check the diagonal values

[kelsey_kincaid]

This one was a fun challenge! There's a lot of sloppy design in this first pass, but I'm excited to clean up the logic later this week.

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I spent far too much time wondering why my Multi-Row formulas weren't behaving - turns out I forgot to sort first. I also started at position 1 in my string instead of position 0. This was a good reminder that it's often the fundamentals that cause issues, and that building workflows is probably done after a good night's rest, not before :) 

Eager to clean up the macro so that I can use a single macro for both parts. I also want to see if I can use Regex to count matches in the diagonals, but I'll need some sleep before I work that out!

I took the lazy way out and set my max iterations to the size of the data. NOT best practice, but it worked for me to get a faster answer, so I went with it for now.

This is one of my multi-row formulas. I used each to look at diagonals going different directions. In hindsight, I don't know that I need all 4, so that's another thing I'll look at tomorrow.

Substring([data],[Engine.IterationNumber],1)+
SubString([Row-1:data],[Engine.IterationNumber]+1,1)+
Substring([Row-2:data],[Engine.IterationNumber]+2,1)+
SubString([Row-3:data],[Engine.IterationNumber]+3,1)​

[NicoleJ]

It's challenges like these that make me wish I had an index listing all the things I've built in the previous Advent of Code years to solve the same exact thing...  "Alexa, tell me how I solved this 'find the coordinates' problem the last 20 times it's come up in Advent of Code..."

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Today's "new Designer features in action" shout-outs: Dark Mode (because I didn't get enough sleep last night getting stuck on Day 3 Part 2, so my eyes already hurt), and Group By in the Record ID tool! ❤️

[rbgruwel]

Nice way to solve a crossword

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[Hub119]

Okay, time for bed. *NOTE: made some tweaks today and reposted so my solution is more clearly labeled and easier to follow (that seems to go out the window at 1 in the morning...)

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[AkimasaKajitani]

My solution! This is messy.

Today it took a long time because I was away for 20-30 minutes in the middle of Part 2. I don't like diagonal...

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[suwenchuan]

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