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These are some answers to the Week 285, Task 1, of the Perl Weekly Challenge organized by Mohammad S. Anwar.

Spoiler Alert: This weekly challenge deadline is due in a few days from now (on September 8, 2024, at 23:59). This blog post provides some solutions to this challenge. Please don’t read on if you intend to complete the challenge on your own.

Task 1: No Connection

You are given a list of routes, @routes.

Write a script to find the destination with no further outgoing connection.

Example 1

Input: @routes = (["B","C"], ["D","B"], ["C","A"])
Output: "A"

"D" -> "B" -> "C" -> "A".
"B" -> "C" -> "A".
"C" -> "A".
"A".

Chapter 3 of Higher Order Perl describes various approaches to memoization of an expensive function: private cache and the Memoize module. The book was written in 2005 (Perl was at version 5.8 back then) , so it does not include another way for function caching that is now available : caching through state variables (introduced in Perl 5.10). The Fibonacci example considered in HOP also requires the ability to initialize state hash variables (available since Perl 5.28). The code below contrasts the implementation with a state variable v.s. the memoize module:

Just Graham and Philippe this time.

We talked about HTTPS in core, and some ideas about it, while the CPAN Security Group is preparing some proposals. Today was the deadline for releasing 5.41.1, but we don’t have volunteers yet, so Graham said he would do it sometime soon.

We also noted that we’ll need some volunteers for the next 10 or so development releases.

Wir freuen uns, die Veröffentlichung von OTOBO 11 bekannt zu geben! Die neueste Version der beliebten Open-Source-Ticketsystem-Software bringt zahlreiche Verbesserungen und neue Funktionen mit sich. Erfahren Sie mehr über die neuen Features und Änderungen auf OTOBO

These are some answers to the Week 284, Task 2, of the Perl Weekly Challenge organized by Mohammad S. Anwar.

Spoiler Alert: This weekly challenge deadline is due in a few days from now (on September 1, 2024, at 23:59). This blog post provides some solutions to this challenge. Please don’t read on if you intend to complete the challenge on your own.

Task 2: Relative Sort

You are given two list of integers, @list1 and @list2. The elements in the @list2 are distinct and also in the @list1.

Write a script to sort the elements in the @list1 such that the relative order of items in @list1 is same as in the @list2. Elements that is missing in @list2 should be placed at the end of @list1 in ascending order.

Example 1

Input: @list1 = (2, 3, 9, 3, 1, 4, 6, 7, 2, 8, 5)
       @list2 = (2, 1, 4, 3, 5, 6)
Ouput: (2, 2, 1, 4, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

Example 2

Over the years that I have existed in four dimensions, I have come to accept that time is not a linear concept heading inexorably in one direction at a uniform rate. It didn't take an Einstein or Hawking to convince me either. Time is as malleable as the distortions applied by our consciousness, or imposed by those around us. Consider my youngest daughter's essay due to be handed in on Tuesday, a task assigned 4 months earlier. At 4,000 words, it represented roughly 6 words an hour allowing for eating, sleeping, work, weekend fun, and other essential time-devouring activities. Yet the "I have got plennnnty of time, chill, dad!" of a few months ago, has now turned into cries of despair, as she has to do an all nighter at her desk instead of being at some selfie-rich event critical to her mental well-being and social standing.

Graham and Philippe met briefly today.

Now that Perl 5.40 is out, and the nomination process for the next PSC is underway, there wasn’t much to discuss, so we cut the meeting short.

The Weekly Challenge 270/2

In the week 270, the second task was really interesting and difficult. Here’s a slightly reformulated version:

We’re given an array of positive integers @ints and two additional integers, $x and $y. We can apply any sequence of the following two operations: 1. Increment one element of @ints. 2. Increment two elements of @ints. The cost of each application of operation 1 is $x, the cost of operation 2 is $y. What’s the minimal cost of a sequence of operations that makes all the elements of @ints equal?

Why do I say it was difficult? I compared all the Perl and Raku solutions I could find in the GitHub repository and none of them gave the same results as mine. It took me several days to find an algorithm that would answer the tricky inputs I generated with a pen and paper, and one more day to optimise it to find the solutions in a reasonable time.

These are some answers to the Week 284, Task 1, of the Perl Weekly Challenge organized by Mohammad S. Anwar.

Spoiler Alert: This weekly challenge deadline is due in a few days from now (on September 1, 2024, at 23:59). This blog post provides some solutions to this challenge. Please don’t read on if you intend to complete the challenge on your own.

Task 1: Lucky Integer

You are given an array of integers, @ints.

Write a script to find the lucky integer if found otherwise return -1. If there are more than one then return the largest.

A lucky integer is an integer that has a frequency in the array equal to its value.

Example 1

Input: @ints = (2, 2, 3, 4)
Output: 2

Example 2

Input: @ints = (1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3)
Output: 3

Example 3

Last year at the Perl Toolchain Summit (PTS) in Lyon, I left three draft pull requests: one about the class declaration introduced in Perl 5.37, one about the PAUSE on docker, and one about multifactor authentication. I wanted to brush them up and ask Andreas König to merge some, but which should I prioritize this year?

Following up on my previous post (MariaDB 10 and Perl DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader), I wanted to try the 'deploy' feature to create database tables from Schema/Result classes.

I was surprised that I could not create a table in the database when a timestamp field had a default of current_time(). The problem was that the generated CREATE TABLE entry placed quotes around 'current_timestamp()' causing an error and rejected entry.

As mentioned in a previous post, I had created file SQL/Translator/Producer/MariDB.pm as part of the effort to get MariaDB 10 clients to work correctly with DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader. Initially it was a clone of the MySQL.pm file with name substitutions. To correct the current_timestamp problem I added a search/replace in the existing create_field subroutine in the MariaDB.pm file to remove the quotes.

In anticipation for the stable release, we:

• revived the “HTTPS out-of-the-box” project: the CPAN Security Group committed to help us select a workable solution, with a goal of implementing it in time for Perl 5.42
• discussed the minutiae of the next stable release
• decided to do it on 2024-05-24 (Friday)

These are some answers to the Week 283, Task 2, of the Perl Weekly Challenge organized by Mohammad S. Anwar.

Spoiler Alert: This blog post provides some solutions to this challenge. Please don’t read on if you intend to complete the challenge on your own.

Task 2: Digit Count Value

You are given an array of positive integers, @ints.

Write a script to return true if for every index i in the range 0 <= i < size of array, the digit i occurs exactly the $ints[$i] times in the given array otherwise return false.

Example 1

We're happy to confirm the venue and date of this year's London Perl & Raku Workshop.

When: Saturday 26th October 2024
Where: The Trampery, 239 Old Street, London EC1V 9EY

This year's workshop will be held at The Trampery, at Old Street. A dedicated modern event space in central London. We have hired both The Ballroom and The Library; allowing us to run a main track for up to 160 attendees, and second smaller track for up to 35 attendees.

The Trampery in Old Street is located a two minute walk from the Northern Line's Old Street tube station in central London. The Northern Line has stops at most of the major train stations in London, or trivial links to others, so we recommend taking the tube to get to the venue.

If you haven't already, please signup and submit talks using the official workshop site: https://act.yapc.eu/lpw2024/

Thanks to this year's sponsors, without whom LPW would not happen:

• Deriv
• Geekuni
• Geizhals Preisvergleich

If you would like to sponsor LPW then please have a look at the options here: https://act.yapc.eu/lpw2024/sponsoring.html

Something I am not good at

The paella must be possibly the worst national dish ever created, I thought to myself as I looked at the charred remains in my pan. It is as if the mind of some ancient Spanish conquistador, returned from his conquests abroad feeling hungry and unfulfilled, dreamt of bringing byriani to Spain, but in the midst of pillaging had forgotten to take culinary notes.

"How difficult can it be, Jose?" the weary warrior muses,
"Yeah, yeah, its just rice and meat, innit", says his Catalan colleague coming from the Spanish equivalent of Birmingham.
"We could use something flavourless, amorphous and chewy, like mussels, instead of meat",
"Whoaaah, nice,",
"And langoustines...",
"langa-what?",
"I know, right? Just throw them all in, don't bother shelling them",
"Raphael has some tomatoes he doesn't need for pelting passing pedestrians",
"Ahh...the flavours", fanning the flames as the smell of their concoction cooking brings back fond memories of far-away burning villages.

Just Graham and Paul

• Reviewed the release-blockers label. Only two left, one is a documentation fix (PR22055)
• Reviewed another documentation PR that should go in for 5.40 (PR22200)

Aside from that, things are looking good for making a 5.40 release at the usual schedule in May.

These are some answers to the Week 283, Task 1, of the Perl Weekly Challenge organized by Mohammad S. Anwar.

Spoiler Alert: This weekly challenge deadline is due in a few days from now (on August 25, 2024, at 23:59). This blog post provides some solutions to this challenge. Please don’t read on if you intend to complete the challenge on your own.

Task 1: Unique Number

You are given an array of integers, @ints, where every element appears more than once except one element. ` Write a script to find the one element that appears exactly one time.

Example 1

Input: @ints = (3, 3, 1)
Output: 1

Example 2

Input: @ints = (3, 2, 4, 2, 4)
Output: 3

Example 3

Brett Estrade, did it again with yet another excellent talk at TPRC 2024 about the use of OpenMP for parallelizing Perl/C code. This is an area that is extremely interesting as OpenMP is a rather straightforward way to parallelize code using simple compiler pragmas in Inline::C sections of code. Furthermore, as I discussed at TPRC2024, the combination of the Many Core Engine (MCE) and OpenMP allow the Perl user to endow a specific piece of code with both process and thread level parallelism, bleeding the hardware for performance without losing the benefits of Perl for high level coding.

Since this an area that may not be familiar to many users, I decided to start blogging about Perl/C parallel application programming at Killing It With Perl . The first post in this series is about a rudimentary control of the OpenMP environment , e.g. setting up the number and scheduling of the threads and you can read all about it here.

Fixing DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader For Use With MariaDB 10 Client Software

I recently set up a virtual Server Running Rocky Linux 9 as a client from which to query a remote MariaDB database. I used perlbrew to install Perl 5.38.2. I installed client related RPMs for MariaDB 10.5, I installed DBIx::Class as a relational mapper that can create Perl Schema Result Classes for each table in the database. If you are new to DBIx::Class, you can review its purpose and features in DBIx::Class::Manual::Intro. The Result Classes used by Perl to query the database are stored on the client server in a schema directory. They are created with the DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader module.

The three of us were there, and our discussion covered:

• 5.40.0 has no more blocking bugs 🎉
• It should be released by the end of the week
• PPC0021 progress continues with Paul and Veesh discussing debugging and development
• The maintainer of HTTP::Tiny delegates design decisions to the PSC. There’s one PR outstanding that we looked over and found agreeable