Look-and-say: Conway revisited

Question

You should all be familiar with the Conway sequence (a.k.a. 'look-and-say'-sequence) by now:

     1
    11
    21
  1211
111221
312211
etc

You can also start by any arbitrary number as starting point. Let f(s) be the next element of the sequence. Now for every given swe can find f(s). The reverse is not as trivial: it is not for every y possible to find the predecessor s such that f(s) = y. E.g. for y = 1 we cannot find a predecessor. But if y has an even length you can divide it into pairs of digits which describe each one part of a predecessor:

513211 divides in 51,32,11
so: 51 comes from 11111 
    32 comes from 222
    11 comes from 1
put together: 111112221

So this way there we can define an unique predecessor for every y of even length.

Note: The 'predecessor' s defined this way does generally NOT satisfy f(s) = y.

Goal

Write a function / program snippet that accepts a string of digits as input that

• calculates the next element of the Conway sequence if the length of the input string is odd
• calculates the predecessor of the input string as defined above if the input string length is even.

Shortest code in bytes wins.

Recent Questions based on the look-and-say sequences:

• Look and say sequence
• Point-free look and say sequence
• Quickly find length of n-th term of the look-and-say sequence

Answer 1

CJam, 46 45 44 43 42 bytes

l_,2%{0\{@)@@_2$=!{0\0}*;}*\)\}{2/{(~*}%}?

Test it here. It takes the number on STDIN and prints the result to STDOUT.

Answer 2

Ruby, 125 120 119 101 bytes

f=->n{c=n.chars;(n.size%2>0?c.chunk{|x|x}.map{|a,b|[b.size,a]}:c.each_slice(2).map{|a,b|b*a.hex})*''}

String input taken through function f:

f['111221']    # => "1211"
f['513211']    # => "111112221"
f['111112221'] # => "513211"

Expanded with notes:

# define lambda that takes one arg
f = -> (n) {
  # store digits in c
  c = n.chars

  # n is of odd length
  if n.size % 2 > 0
    # group identical numbers
    c.chunk{ |x| x }.map do |a, b|
      # array of [digit count, digit value]
      [b.size, a]
    end
  else
    # slice array into groups of two elements
    c.each_slice(2).map do |a, b|
      # repeat the second digit in a pair
      # the first digit-times.
      b * a.hex
    end
  end * '' # join array
}

Answer 3

Prolog - 170 bytes

[]/[].
T/R:-0*_*T*R.
C*X*[X|T]*R:-(C+1)*X*T*R.
C*X*T*Y:-10*C+X+Y+R,T/R.
N+R+A:-N=:=0,A=R;D is N mod 10,N//10+R+[D|A].
F-C-R:-C/N,(N=F,R=C;F-N-R).
[1]-[1,1]. S-T:-S-[1]-T.

This snipped defines the function (-)/2. You can invoke it like

?- [1,1,1,3,2,1,3,2,1,1]-T.
T = [1, 3, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 1] .

?- [1]-T.
T = [1, 1] .

There seems to be only one lengths in this sequence with an odd parity: the initial [1].

wr_len :- wr_len(1, [1]).
wr_len(N, Cur) :-
    length(Cur, Len),
    TrailingZeroes is lsb(Len),
    (TrailingZeroes > 0 -> Par = 'even'; Par = 'odd'),
    writef('%t\t%t\t%t\t%t\n', [N, Len, Par, TrailingZeroes]),
    get_next(Cur, Next),
    succ(N, O),
    !, wr_len(O, Next).

% index, length, parity of length, num of trailing 0 in bin presentation of length
?- wr_len.
1       1       odd     0
2       2       even    1
3       2       even    1
4       4       even    2
5       6       even    1
6       6       even    1
7       8       even    3
8       10      even    1
9       14      even    1
10      20      even    2
11      26      even    1
12      34      even    1
13      46      even    1
14      62      even    1
15      78      even    1
16      102     even    1
17      134     even    1
18      176     even    4
19      226     even    1
20      302     even    1
21      408     even    3
22      528     even    4
23      678     even    1
24      904     even    3
25      1182    even    1
26      1540    even    2
27      2012    even    2
28      2606    even    1
29      3410    even    1
30      4462    even    1
31      5808    even    4
32      7586    even    1
33      9898    even    1
34      12884   even    2
35      16774   even    1
36      21890   even    1
37      28528   even    4
38      37158   even    1
39      48410   even    1
40      63138   even    1
41      82350   even    1
42      107312  even    4
43      139984  even    4
44      182376  even    3
45      237746  even    1
46      310036  even    2
47      403966  even    1
48      526646  even    1
49      686646  even    1
50      894810  even    1
51      1166642 even    1
52      1520986 even    1
53      1982710 even    1
54      2584304 even    4
55      3369156 even    2
56      4391702 even    1
57      5724486 even    1
58      7462860 even    2
59      9727930 even    1
ERROR: Out of global stack
% I added a few "strategic" cuts (`!`) to get so far.

Readable:

get_next([], []).
get_next(Current, Next) :-
    get_next_sub(0, _, Current, Next).

get_next_sub(Length, Digit, [Digit|Tail], Result) :-
    get_next_sub(Length+1, Digit, Tail, Result).
get_next_sub(Length, Digit, Further, Result) :-
    number_to_list(10*Length+Digit, Result, ResultTail),
    get_next(Further, ResultTail).

number_to_list(Number, Result, Accumulator) :-
    0 is Number -> Result = Accumulator;
    Digit is Number mod 10,
    number_to_list(Number // 10, Result, [Digit|Accumulator]).

get_previous(Stop, Current, Result) :-
    get_next(Current, Next),
    (   Next = Stop
    ->  Result = Current
    ;   get_previous(Stop, Next, Result)
    ).

get_prev_or_next(Input, Result) :-
    length(Input, Length),
    (   1 is Length mod 2
    ->  get_next(Input, Result)
    ;   get_previous(Input, [1], Result)
    ).

Answer 4

Python: 139 chars

import re
f=lambda s:''.join(['len(b)'+a for a,b in re.findall(r'((\d)\2*)',s)] if len(s)%2 else map(lambda a,b:b*int(a),s[::2],s[1::2]))

single test case

print f('1111122221111222112')
>>> 514241322112
print f('514241322112')
>>> 1111122221111222112

Answer 5

Haskell, 134 128 115

n=length
l x=x#mod(n x)2
(a:b:c)#0=replicate(read[a])b++c#0
(a:b)#1=(\(c,d)->show(1+n c)++a:d#1)$span(==a)b
_#_=[]

If it needs to be from stdin/stdout, add main=interact l for 150 144 131 total chars. The function is called l.

*Main> putStr . unlines $ map (\x->x++":\t"++l x) ([replicate n '1'|n<-[5..10]]++map show [0,6..30]++map show [n*n+n|n<-[2..10]])
11111:  51
111111: 111
1111111:    71
11111111:   1111
111111111:  91
1111111111: 11111
0:  10
6:  16
12: 2
18: 8
24: 44
30: 000
6:  16
12: 2
20: 00
30: 000
42: 2222
56: 66666
72: 2222222
90: 000000000
110:    2110

Answer 6

Perl - 98 bytes

The size of all these control statements bugs me, but I'm pretty happy with how the regexes worked out.

($_)=@ARGV;if(length()%2){$\=$&,s/^$&+//,print length$&while/^./}else{print$2x$1while s/^(.)(.)//}

Uncompressed:

($_)=@ARGV;
if(length()%2)
{
$\=$&, #Assigning the character to $\ causes it to be appended to the print (thanks, tips thread!)
s/^$&+//, #Extract the string of characters
print length$& #Print its length
while/^./ #Get next character into $&
}else{
print$2x$1
while s/^(.)(.)//
}

Answer 7

Java 7, Score = 252 235 bytes

Yep, it's java again; the worst golfing language in the world. This approach uses strings. Arbitrarily large integers are supported in java but would take much more room to code in.

Call with f(intputString). Returns the corresponding string.

Golfed:

String f(String a){char[]b=a.toCharArray();a="";int i=0,j=0,d=0,e=b.length;if(e%2==0)for(;i<e;i+=2)for(j=0;j<b[i]-48;j++)a+=b[i+1];else{for(;i<e;i++)d=d==0?(j=b[i]-48)*0+1:b[i]-48!=j?(a+=d+""+j).length()*--i*0:d+1;a+=d;a+=j;}return a;}

Golfed Expanded with structure code:

public class LookAndSayExpandedGolfed{

    public static void main(String[] args){
        System.out.println(new LookAndSayExpandedGolfed().f(args[0]));
    }

    String f(String a){
        char[]b=a.toCharArray();
        a="";
        int i=0,j=0,d=0,e=b.length;
        if(e%2==0)
            for(;i<e;i+=2)
                for(j=0;j<b[i]-48;j++)
                    a+=b[i+1];
        else{
            for(;i<e;i++)
                d=d==0?(j=b[i]-48)*0+1:b[i]-48!=j?(a+=d+""+j).length()*--i*0:d+1;
            a+=d;
            a+=j;
        }
        return a;
    }

}

Partially Golfed:

public class LookAndSayPartiallyGolfed{

    public static void main(String[] args){
        System.out.println(new LookAndSayPartiallyGolfed().f(args[0]));
    }

    String f(String a){
        char[] number = a.toCharArray();
        String answer = "";
        int i, j, longestStreakLength = 0;
        if (number.length % 2 == 0){
            for (i = 0; i < number.length; i += 2)
                for (j = 0; j < number[i] - 48; j++)
                    answer += number[i+1];
        } else{
            j = 0;
            for (i = 0; i < number.length; i++)
                longestStreakLength = longestStreakLength == 0 ? (j = number[i] - 48) * 0 + 1 : number[i] - 48 != j ? (answer += longestStreakLength + "" + j).length()*--i*0 : longestStreakLength + 1;
            answer += longestStreakLength;
            answer += j;
        }
        return answer;
    }

}

Completely expanded:

public class LookAndSay{

    public static void main(String[] args){
        System.out.println(new LookAndSay().function(args[0]));
    }

    String function(String a){
        char[] number = a.toCharArray();
        if (number.length % 2 == 0){
            String answer = "";
            for (int i = 0; i < number.length; i += 2){
                for (int j = 0; j < number[i] - '0'; j++){
                    answer += number[i+1];
                }
            }
            return answer;
        }
        String answer = "";
        int longestStreakLength = 0;
        int longestStreakNum = 0;
        for (int i = 0; i < number.length; i++){
            if (longestStreakLength == 0){
                longestStreakNum = number[i] - '0';
                longestStreakLength = 1;
                continue;
            }
            if (number[i] - '0' != longestStreakNum){
                answer += longestStreakLength;
                answer += longestStreakNum;
                longestStreakLength = 0;
                i--;
            } else {
                longestStreakLength++;
            }
        }
        answer += longestStreakLength;
        answer += longestStreakNum;
        return answer;
    }

}

To run, first compile the second entry with: javac LookAndSayExpandedGolfed.java

Then run with: java LookAndSayExpandedGolfed

Edit: Fixed error.

Answer 8

Erlang, 205

f(L)->g(L,L,[]).
g([A,B|T],L,C)->g(T,L,lists:duplicate(A-$0,B)++C);g([],_,R)->R;g(_,L,_)->i(L,[]).
h([A|T],A,N,B)->h(T,A,N+1,B);h(L,B,N,C)->i(L,integer_to_list(N)++[B|C]).
i([H|T],A)->h(T,H,1,A);i(_,R)->R.

Main function is f, taking the input as an Erlang string and returning the output as a string as well.

f("11"). % returns "1"
f("111"). % returns "31"
f("1111111111111"). % returns "131"

The function can be made 15 bytes shorter (190) by dropping the more than 9 identical characters case requirement. f calls g which computes the predecessor recursively, and if the number of characters is odd (found at when computation ends), it calls function i which, paired with h, computes the next element.

Answer 9

Haskell, 105

import Data.List
l=length
c r|odd$l r=group r>>=(l>>=(.take 1).shows)|x:y:z<-r=[y|_<-['1'..x]]++c z|0<1=r

I think it's nice it turned out not using any helper functions :-).

Answer 10

APL (45)

∊{2|⍴⍵:(⊃,⍨⍕∘⍴)¨⍵⊂⍨1,2≠/⍵⋄/⍨∘⍎/¨⌽¨⍵⊂⍨1 0⍴⍨⍴⍵}

Yes, that's a valid function definition, even with the ∊ on the outside.

      ∊{2|⍴⍵:(⊃,⍨⍕∘⍴)¨⍵⊂⍨1,2≠/⍵⋄/⍨∘⍎/¨⌽¨⍵⊂⍨1 0⍴⍨⍴⍵}'513211'
111112221
      ∊{2|⍴⍵:(⊃,⍨⍕∘⍴)¨⍵⊂⍨1,2≠/⍵⋄/⍨∘⍎/¨⌽¨⍵⊂⍨1 0⍴⍨⍴⍵}'111112221'
513211
      f←∊{2|⍴⍵:(⊃,⍨⍕∘⍴)¨⍵⊂⍨1,2≠/⍵⋄/⍨∘⍎/¨⌽¨⍵⊂⍨1 0⍴⍨⍴⍵}
      f ¨ '513211' '111112221'
┌─────────┬──────┐
│111112221│513211│
└─────────┴──────┘

Answer 11

Javascript (in-browser, ES5, IE8+), 152

var s=prompt(),r='',n=r,c=r,i=0;do{c!=s[i]?(r+=n+c,n=1,c=s[i]):n++;i++}while(c)n='';i=0;while(s[i]){n+=Array(1*s[i]+1).join(c=s[i+1]);i+=2}alert(c?n:r)

Can be shortened by 4 chars if you skip var, or a few more chars with other intermediate unvarred globals too, but let's pretend we are not bad programmers for a minute.

Switching to ES6 short-syntax function with argument and return value instead of using prompt, alert for IO can save more.

JSFiddle here: http://jsfiddle.net/86L1w6Lk/

Answer 12

Python 3 - 159 bytes

import re;l=input();x=len;print(''.join([str(x(i))+j for i,j in re.findall('((.)\2*)',l)]if x(l)%2 else[j*int(i)for i,j in[l[i:i+2]for i in range(0,x(l),2)]]))

Answer 13

Cobra - 217

(186 if I can assume a use statement for System.Text.RegularExpressions exists elsewhere)

do(s='')=if((l=s.length)%2,System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.replace(s,(for x in 10 get'[x]+|').join(''),do(m=Match())="['[m]'.length]"+'[m]'[:1]),(for x in 0:l:2get'[s[x+1]]'.repeat(int.parse('[s[x]]'))).join(''))

Answer 14

JavaScript (ES6) 85

Using regular expression replace with function. Different regexp and different function depending on input length being even or odd.

F=s=>s.replace((i=s.length&1)?/(.)(\1*)/g:/../g,x=>i?x.length+x[0]:x[1].repeat(x[0]))