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Given a string of ASCII characters, output the character that is in the middle. If there is no middle character (when the string has an even length), output the ASCII character whose ordinal is the floored average of the two center characters. If the string is empty, an empty string should be output.
Test cases:
12345 => 3
Hello => l
Hiya => q
(empty input) => (empty output)
Shortest program in characters wins. (Not bytes.)
Leaderboard
The Stack Snippet at the bottom of this post generates the leaderboard from the answers a) as a list of shortest solution per language and b) as an overall leaderboard.
To make sure that your answer shows up, please start your answer with a headline, using the following Markdown template:
## Language Name, N characters
where N
is the size of your submission. If you improve your score, you can keep old scores in the headline, by striking them through. For instance:
## Ruby, <s>104</s> <s>101</s> 96 characters
If there you want to include multiple numbers in your header (e.g. because your score is the sum of two files or you want to list interpreter flag penalties separately), make sure that the actual score is the last number in the header:
## Perl, 43 + 2 (-p flag) = 45 characters
You can also make the language name a link which will then show up in the snippet:
## [><>](http://esolangs.org/wiki/Fish), 121 characters
<style>body { text-align: left !important} #answer-list { padding: 10px; width: 290px; float: left; } #language-list { padding: 10px; width: 290px; float: left; } table thead { font-weight: bold; } table td { padding: 5px; }</style><script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="//cdn.sstatic.net/codegolf/all.css?v=83c949450c8b"> <div id="language-list"> <h2>Shortest Solution by Language</h2> <table class="language-list"> <thead> <tr><td>Language</td><td>User</td><td>Score</td></tr> </thead> <tbody id="languages"> </tbody> </table> </div> <div id="answer-list"> <h2>Leaderboard</h2> <table class="answer-list"> <thead> <tr><td></td><td>Author</td><td>Language</td><td>Size</td></tr> </thead> <tbody id="answers"> </tbody> </table> </div> <table style="display: none"> <tbody id="answer-template"> <tr><td>{{PLACE}}</td><td>{{NAME}}</td><td>{{LANGUAGE}}</td><td>{{SIZE}}</td><td><a href="{{LINK}}">Link</a></td></tr> </tbody> </table> <table style="display: none"> <tbody id="language-template"> <tr><td>{{LANGUAGE}}</td><td>{{NAME}}</td><td>{{SIZE}}</td><td><a href="{{LINK}}">Link</a></td></tr> </tbody> </table><script>var QUESTION_ID = 64599; var ANSWER_FILTER = "!t)IWYnsLAZle2tQ3KqrVveCRJfxcRLe"; var COMMENT_FILTER = "!)Q2B_A2kjfAiU78X(md6BoYk"; var OVERRIDE_USER = 47556; var answers = [], answers_hash, answer_ids, answer_page = 1, more_answers = true, comment_page; function answersUrl(index) { return "https://api.stackexchange.com/2.2/questions/" + QUESTION_ID + "/answers?page=" + index + "&pagesize=100&order=desc&sort=creation&site=codegolf&filter=" + ANSWER_FILTER; } function commentUrl(index, answers) { return "https://api.stackexchange.com/2.2/answers/" + answers.join(';') + "/comments?page=" + index + "&pagesize=100&order=desc&sort=creation&site=codegolf&filter=" + COMMENT_FILTER; } function getAnswers() { jQuery.ajax({ url: answersUrl(answer_page++), method: "get", dataType: "jsonp", crossDomain: true, success: function (data) { answers.push.apply(answers, data.items); answers_hash = []; answer_ids = []; data.items.forEach(function(a) { a.comments = []; var id = +a.share_link.match(/\d+/); answer_ids.push(id); answers_hash[id] = a; }); if (!data.has_more) more_answers = false; comment_page = 1; getComments(); } }); } function getComments() { jQuery.ajax({ url: commentUrl(comment_page++, answer_ids), method: "get", dataType: "jsonp", crossDomain: true, success: function (data) { data.items.forEach(function(c) { if (c.owner.user_id === OVERRIDE_USER) answers_hash[c.post_id].comments.push(c); }); if (data.has_more) getComments(); else if (more_answers) getAnswers(); else process(); } }); } getAnswers(); var SCORE_REG = /<h\d>\s*([^\n,<]*(?:<(?:[^\n>]*>[^\n<]*<\/[^\n>]*>)[^\n,<]*)*),.*?(\d+)(?=[^\n\d<>]*(?:<(?:s>[^\n<>]*<\/s>|[^\n<>]+>)[^\n\d<>]*)*<\/h\d>)/; var OVERRIDE_REG = /^Override\s*header:\s*/i; function getAuthorName(a) { return a.owner.display_name; } function process() { var valid = []; answers.forEach(function(a) { var body = a.body; a.comments.forEach(function(c) { if(OVERRIDE_REG.test(c.body)) body = '<h1>' + c.body.replace(OVERRIDE_REG, '') + '</h1>'; }); var match = body.match(SCORE_REG); if (match) valid.push({ user: getAuthorName(a), size: +match[2], language: match[1], link: a.share_link, }); else console.log(body); }); valid.sort(function (a, b) { var aB = a.size, bB = b.size; return aB - bB }); var languages = {}; var place = 1; var lastSize = null; var lastPlace = 1; valid.forEach(function (a) { if (a.size != lastSize) lastPlace = place; lastSize = a.size; ++place; var answer = jQuery("#answer-template").html(); answer = answer.replace("{{PLACE}}", lastPlace + ".") .replace("{{NAME}}", a.user) .replace("{{LANGUAGE}}", a.language) .replace("{{SIZE}}", a.size) .replace("{{LINK}}", a.link); answer = jQuery(answer); jQuery("#answers").append(answer); var lang = a.language; lang = jQuery('<a>'+lang+'</a>').text(); languages[lang] = languages[lang] || {lang: a.language, lang_raw: lang.toLowerCase(), user: a.user, size: a.size, link: a.link}; }); var langs = []; for (var lang in languages) if (languages.hasOwnProperty(lang)) langs.push(languages[lang]); langs.sort(function (a, b) { if (a.lang_raw > b.lang_raw) return 1; if (a.lang_raw < b.lang_raw) return -1; return 0; }); for (var i = 0; i < langs.length; ++i) { var language = jQuery("#language-template").html(); var lang = langs[i]; language = language.replace("{{LANGUAGE}}", lang.lang) .replace("{{NAME}}", lang.user) .replace("{{SIZE}}", lang.size) .replace("{{LINK}}", lang.link); language = jQuery(language); jQuery("#languages").append(language); } }</script>
15Usually we score in bytes so people can't compress their entire code, as this results in boring solutions. Are you sure you want this? – Downgoat – 2015-11-23T23:26:49.133
1@Vɪʜᴀɴ I don't think that will be a problem here, since solutions will be very short anyway, so compressing won't be worth it. – Ypnypn – 2015-11-23T23:27:29.763
Can you describe what you mean by floored average? – TanMath – 2015-11-23T23:32:47.933
@TanMath I think it means if the average is 87.8 you should always round down to 87 – Downgoat – 2015-11-23T23:33:47.463
9Welcome to PPCG! Great first challenge! – Conor O'Brien – 2015-11-23T23:56:19.520
2Can we write functions? – Downgoat – 2015-11-23T23:57:18.977
10Pro-tip: encode your answers in UTF-32. 4 bytes per character. Or maybe the OP should just get rid of the character scoring. – Mego – 2015-11-24T00:15:51.817
@Vɪʜᴀɴ Functions are allowed by default int [tag:code-golf] – flawr – 2015-11-24T11:44:01.077
@Mego See http://meta.codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/7248/should-a-character-encoding-that-cant-actually-be-used-by-a-compiler-interprete
– Adam Davis – 2015-11-25T15:14:59.943@AdamDavis That only matters if your compiler/interpreter can't read the encoding. Seriously, for example, is happy with any encoding, because it's all just bytes to it anyway. – Mego – 2015-11-25T16:57:41.540