Talk:Multisplit

What is going on here?

So I see that we have this for some sample output:

['a', [1, 1], '', [0, 3], 'b', [2, 6], '', [1, 7], 'c']

What's with the empty strings there? Is it saying that there are empty strings at position 3 and 7 in the input string and that they correspond to separators 0 and 1? This doesn't make sense to me at all. --Mwn3d 04:27, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

The task description doesn't stand on its own at the moment. Do you mean to have arbitrary interpretation of what constitutes a match for example?
I.e. given a text of 'X123Y' and separators '1', '12', '123', '23', and '3' then there are a multitude of possible answers which would fit the initial task description. This may lead to answers that are difficult to compare due to diverging interpretations of the spec.

The output format seems to be Python specific. Do you mean it to be or could any ordered output of sub<N>, sepnum<N>, seppos<N>, ... work? --Paddy3118 04:46, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

@Mwn3d: This format is for convenience: at even (from 0) positions we have strings, at odd - separators. Different formats are suitable for different tasks.
@Paddy3118: Separators are considered in input order.

Input: 'X123Y', ['1', '12', '123', '23', '3']
Output: ['X', [0, 1], '', [3, 2], 'Y']

It is acceptable to output this information in data structures native to programming language. --DSblizzard

'a' is at an odd position according to the output, but it's a string. And that still doesn't explain where "''" came from. --Mwn3d 03:07, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

odd - if we will count from 1, OK. This format with empty strings allows us to quickly answer, what is the 1548-th separator in a string, without looking over first 1547 separators. Another format which allows to answer such question will be more complicated. --DSblizzard

I've reworded the task so that it actually describes the task rather than referring to an implementation. I'm also trying to avoid having it state that the strings and separator information have to be interleaved; that's a very odd thing to do in some languages. My aim was that the solutions given should continue to be solutions, but that the description won't stop other ways of doing the challenge; after all, we want solutions to tasks to be as idiomatic as possible in their language. –Donal Fellows 10:31, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Small inaccuracy in the smaller non-RE Python version?

This is a reason to tighten the task description, as I think the task description relies too much on the original Python implementation at the moment. --Paddy3118 08:16, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not tempted in a formulation of Rosetta tasks, therefore feel free to rewrite the task as you see fit.--DSblizzard 09:33, 28 February 2011 (UTC)