this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2025
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Advent Of Code

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An unofficial home for the advent of code community on programming.dev! Other challenges are also welcome!

Advent of Code is an annual Advent calendar of small programming puzzles for a variety of skill sets and skill levels that can be solved in any programming language you like.

Everybody Codes is another collection of programming puzzles with seasonal events.

EC 2025

AoC 2025

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Day 12: Christmas Tree Farm

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[–] addie@feddit.uk 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

C++

Hah, got me good too Mr Wastl. Was wondering how long this could possibly take to run - the worst-case is very bad indeed. This prints out the first "fit" it finds, for verification purposes, and keeps the successful ones in case they're needed for "part 2".

Merry Xmas, everyone.

#include <boost/describe.hpp>
#include <boost/describe/operators.hpp>
#include <boost/log/trivial.hpp>
#include <boost/unordered/unordered_flat_set.hpp>
#include <fstream>
#include <iostream>
#include <ostream>
#include <sstream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>

namespace {

struct Point {
  int x, y;
};
BOOST_DESCRIBE_STRUCT(Point, (), (x, y))
using boost::describe::operators::operator==;

using Present = boost::unordered::unordered_flat_set<Point>;
using PresentList = std::vector<size_t>;

struct Tree {
  int width;
  int height;
  PresentList presents;
};
auto operator<<(std::ostream &o, const Tree &t) -> std::ostream & {
  o << t.width << 'x' << t.height << ": ";
  auto total = size_t{};
  for (auto &p : t.presents) {
    o << p << ' ';
    total += p;
  }
  return o << "(" << total << ")";
}

auto copy_if(const Present &in, Present &out, const Point &a, const Point &b) {
  if (in.contains(a))
    out.insert(b);
}

auto rotate(const Present &in) {
  auto out = Present{};
  copy_if(in, out, {0, 0}, {2, 0});
  copy_if(in, out, {1, 0}, {2, 1});
  copy_if(in, out, {2, 0}, {2, 2});
  copy_if(in, out, {0, 1}, {1, 0});
  copy_if(in, out, {1, 1}, {1, 1});
  copy_if(in, out, {2, 1}, {1, 2});
  copy_if(in, out, {0, 2}, {0, 0});
  copy_if(in, out, {1, 2}, {0, 1});
  copy_if(in, out, {2, 2}, {0, 2});
  return out;
}

auto hflip(const Present &in) {
  auto out = Present{};
  for (auto x = 0; x < 3; ++x)
    for (auto y = 0; y < 3; ++y)
      copy_if(in, out, {x, y}, {2 - x, y});
  return out;
}

auto vflip(const Present &in) {
  auto out = Present{};
  for (auto x = 0; x < 3; ++x)
    for (auto y = 0; y < 3; ++y)
      copy_if(in, out, {x, y}, {x, 2 - y});
  return out;
}

struct Puzzle {
  std::vector<Present> presents;
  std::vector<Tree> trees;
};

auto read() {
  auto rval = Puzzle{};
  auto ih = std::ifstream{"12.txt"};
  auto line = std::string{};
  for (auto i = 0; i < 6; ++i) {
    std::getline(ih, line); // number
    auto present = Present{};
    for (auto y = size_t{}; y < 3; ++y) {
      std::getline(ih, line);
      for (auto x = size_t{}; x < 3; ++x) {
        if (line.at(x) == '#')
          present.emplace(x, y);
      }
    }
    std::getline(ih, line); // following space
    rval.presents.push_back(std::move(present));
  }
  while (std::getline(ih, line)) {
    auto tree = Tree{};
    auto times = line.find('x');
    auto colon = line.find(':');
    tree.width = std::stoi(line.substr(0, times));
    tree.height = std::stoi(line.substr(times + 1, colon - times - 1));
    auto count = size_t{};
    auto ss = std::istringstream{line.substr(colon + 1)};
    while (ss >> count)
      tree.presents.push_back(count);
    rval.trees.push_back(std::move(tree));
  }
  return rval;
}

using Occupied = boost::unordered::unordered_flat_set<Point>;
using PresentFlips = boost::unordered::unordered_flat_set<Present>;
using PresentFlipsList = std::vector<PresentFlips>;

auto place_present(
    Occupied occupied,
    const Present &present,
    const Point &origin
) -> std::optional<Occupied> {
  for (const auto &point : present) {
    auto px = origin.x + point.x;
    auto py = origin.y + point.y;
    if (occupied.contains({px, py}))
      return {};
    occupied.insert({px, py});
  }
  return {occupied};
}

auto draw_occupied(const Tree &t, const Occupied &occupied) {
  for (auto x = 0; x < t.width; ++x) {
    for (auto y = 0; y < t.height; ++y) {
      if (occupied.contains({x, y}))
        std::cout << '#';
      else
        std::cout << '.';
    }
    std::cout << '\n';
  }
}

auto can_place(
    const Tree &tree,
    const PresentFlipsList &flips,
    Occupied occupied,
    PresentList list
) -> bool {
  auto j = size_t{};
  for (; j < list.size(); ++j) {
    if (list.at(j) > 0)
      break;
  }
  if (j == list.size()) {
    draw_occupied(tree, occupied);
    return true; // yeah!
  }
  list[j]--;

  for (auto x = 0; x < tree.width - 2; ++x)
    for (auto y = 0; y < tree.height - 2; ++y) {
      for (auto &flip : flips.at(j)) {
        auto test = place_present(occupied, flip, {x, y});
        if (!test.has_value())
          continue;
        auto works = can_place(tree, flips, test.value(), list);
        if (works)
          return true;
      }
    }
  return false;
}

auto part1(const Puzzle &puzzle) {
  auto possible = std::vector<Tree>{};
  for (const auto &tree : puzzle.trees) {
    auto area = size_t(tree.width * tree.height);
    auto used = size_t{};
    for (auto present = size_t{}; present < puzzle.presents.size(); ++present) {
      used += tree.presents.at(present) * puzzle.presents.at(present).size();
    }
    if (used > area)
      continue;
    possible.push_back(tree);
  }
  auto flips = PresentFlipsList{};
  for (auto j = size_t{}; j < puzzle.presents.size(); ++j) {
    auto flip = PresentFlips{};
    auto rotation = puzzle.presents.at(j);
    for (auto i = 0; i < 4; ++i) {
      flip.insert(rotation);
      flip.insert(hflip(rotation));
      flip.insert(vflip(rotation));
      flip.insert(hflip(vflip(rotation)));
      rotation = rotate(rotation);
    }
    BOOST_LOG_TRIVIAL(debug) << j << " has " << flip.size() << " flips";
    flips.push_back(std::move(flip));
  }
  auto confirmed = std::vector<Tree>{};
  for (auto &tree : possible)
    if (can_place(tree, flips, Occupied{}, tree.presents)) {
      BOOST_LOG_TRIVIAL(debug) << tree << " can be placed";
      confirmed.push_back(std::move(tree));
    } else {
      BOOST_LOG_TRIVIAL(debug) << tree << " can't be placed";
    }
  return confirmed.size();
}

} // namespace

auto main() -> int {
  auto puzzle = read();
  BOOST_LOG_TRIVIAL(info) << "Day 12: read " << puzzle.presents.size() << " / "
                          << puzzle.trees.size();
  BOOST_LOG_TRIVIAL(info) << "1:" << part1(puzzle);
}
[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ha, that is beautiful. How long did it run for?

[–] addie@feddit.uk 3 points 1 week ago

For the test cases (ironically, the only difficult ones) it finds the solution for 1 basically instantly, 2 in 0.2 seconds, and checks all possibilities for 3 in about 18 seconds before rejecting it.

For the thousand 'puzzle' cases, about half are rejected since the area is simply too small for the presents in an instant. A possible solution is found for all of them in about 80 seconds, so about five per second.

I was concerned that the puzzle cases were about four times the area, and some of them had 255 presents (which might be the maximum stack depth in some languages - not C++, though). So maybe some of them would find a solution quickly, and excluding the worst might take ~ 4 times the size * 30 times the presents * 20 seconds = the best part of an hour. Multithreading it and hoping not too many of them were 'worst case', and I could leave my computer on overnight number-crunching it. Box packing is NP-complete and we need a 'true' answer rather than an approximation, so I couldn't see any better way of doing it than checking every possibility. Sorting the list didn't really show any evidence of puzzles that could be 'pruned' - areas that were the same but with increasing numbers of presents, say, so that you could reject the larger ones after the first failure.

Was kicking myself when it ran so quickly.