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As a personal challenge, I'm trying to solve everyAdvent of Code problem in a single line of Python code. No, my solutions are not optimal. Nor readable. Nor useful in any other way. But it's fun, so here we go!

I originally attempted this in 2022 and made it through about a dozen days. I'm now working on 2023 in real time! You can follow along on this repository or throughmy Reddit posts.

Note that per copyright andEric Wastl's request, input files are not included in this repository, so you must replace the file paths if you would like to run this code.

I'm using Python version3.11.3. The solutions should not require any additional packages (I'm only importing from thePython Standard Library), but in thetools folder, I have a script for importing the input files from the Advent of Code server that usesrequests and a visualization tool that usesmatplotlib andsvgwrite.

Currently I am not working on 2022 problems, but this is where I left off:

Within each year's folder:

• All the one-line solutions are combined into a single disgusting line of code that solves all the Advent of Code problems at once, nicknamed based on the year:
  • 2023:the-basilisk
  • 2022:the-beast
• Theday-xx.py files have my first solution attempts and the resulting one-liners. See them to better understand what the blasphemous one-liners do.

I've created some visualizations and memes throughout the month. They can be found in theimages folder.

Below is an example vizualization of the length of each day's solution in the Basilisk as of Day 8. I automated creating parts of it; see the tools below.

• create-rainbow-line-svg.py: Creates a rainbow line SVG image from a list of numbers, with each band a calculated percent of the whole. Used to automatically generate the colours and proportions for the visualization above. Also included is a tool for calculating the character counts in my one-line combined solutions, e.g.The Basilisk, or all your solution files in a given year if you provide your first day's file name.
• create-blank-solution.py: Creates a new file with a blank solution template for the given year and day. Written explicitly for myself, but feel free to modify it for your personal use if you'd like.
• import-input.py: Requests the AoC server for a given day's input and saves it as a new text file. Try tolimit your use of this tool to once per day.

Here are some fun ways I've been able to convert Python statements that normally require their own line into one-line expressions:

• List comprehensions: This entire thing wouldn't be possible without Python'slist comprehensions, which allows you to havefor andif statements within a single expression/line.
• Short-circuit (lazy) evaluation: Python hasshort-circuit evaluation for its Boolean operations, which means the second expression in a Boolean operation is only evaluated if the result of the first expression does not guarantee the final result of the expression. This allows me to strategically useand andor to determine the order that expressions are executed, skipping around when necessary.
• In-line assignment operator: TheWalrus operator (:=) allows you to create and assign variables within an expression. I discovered it trying to parseDay 5 in 2022, and it has since beena hard carry.
• Updating a list element in-line: Since the assignment operator cannot be used with subscripts, it cannot be used to update lists (e.g.a[0] := 1 is invalid). My solution forDay 9 in 2022 was to pop the element, modify it, and then insert it back into the same position, e.g.x.insert(0, x.pop(0)+1). Then, forDay 4 in 2023, I discovered the__setitem__() method, which allows you to update a list element in-line, e.g.x.__setitem__(0, x[0]+1). OnDay 5 in 2023, I figured outx.__iadd__([0]) is equivalent tox.append(0).
• In-line import statements: After not using import statements in 2022 since it would technically make my solutions more than one line, I discovered the built-in__import__() function in 2023 that has finally allowed me to useRegEx in my solutions.
• Mywhile loop within a list comprehension:I was very proud of discovering this while working on2022's Day 8. Since I wanted my list comprehension to end execution once a condition was met, I had a tracker variable turnTrue when it was and included it in thefor condition. But to do this in a single line, I needed to add anotherif condition that simply creates and assigns the tracker variableFalse, making sure it ran before the main list comprehension was calculated. An example line with a tracker variable calledfound:[(x < t[r][c]) or (found:=True) for x in t[r][:c][::-1] if not found] if not (found:=False) else ''
  Update: While solving2023's Day 8, I discovereditertools.takewhile(predicate, iterable), which solved mywhile loop problem in a much cleaner way! Thank goodness I removed my "no import" restriction for this year.

Potential employers: I promise my production code is much, much better than this. Please don't blacklist me :(

... but if you're looking to reduce the lines of code in your codebase, I've got some ideas! ;)