Regular expressions crossword

On Coinheist.com, a crossword puzzle you solve by interpreting regular expressions.

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: computer science • Games • happy mutants • puzzles • regexp

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Hackers prepare for first "national holiday" in their honor

jimbuck

.*O.*M.*G
http://twitter.com/openfly ǝɔʎoſ ʇʇɐW

pffft real nerds laser cut their own unicode scrabble pieces.

https://www.music-piracy.com/?p=255 <— i am sobbing on the inside.
David Speyer

The following could be viewed as a very minor spoiler, but might also avoid a great deal of frustration by solvers: Gur ragevrf ner fvzcyl abafrafr fgevatf bs punenpgref, abg jbeqf. Lbh fubhyq guvax bs guvf nf n ybtvp chmmyr, yvxr n infgyl avsgvre Fbqhxh, abg n pebffjbeq. [ROT13]
- http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan
  
  Lbh’er evtug. Vg vf n cerggl zvabe fcbvyre.
- http://twitter.com/bergius Niklas Bergius
  
  If one can’t see that by looking at the regexps (for example, /(S|MM|HHH)*/), one should perhaps not attempt to solve this puzzle :).
Scott Handelman

Ah, Mystery Hunt. How I love you.
- http://www.facebook.com/zmcdowell Zach McDowell
  
  This puzzle, in particular, makes me cry a little. This Mystery Hunt, in particular, made me cry a little. It is a difficult relationship to love the Mystery Hunt so much sometimes. :)
slippy0

As Scott has pointed out, this was a puzzle from MIT’s annual Mystery Hunt. This year’s was infamous in that it was the longest on record. It ran over 70 hours, and that’s with them giving a free puzzle solution every hour, and cutting out 1/6th of the entire puzzle by the end of the hunt.
robuluz

NERDS!
mujadaddy

Oh golly, I’m not going to win this race, but I’m going to enjoy the journey. Thanks, nerds.
http://imcravingpresidency.tumblr.com/ SedanChair

Me: Internet! I need proof that I’m stupid. Can you help?
Internet: look at this image
Me: Thanks!
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  It’s covered in bees!
  - http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan
    
    You can say that again. It do be beey.
pdffs

So, I assume these are meant to match the whole line, from the start, and not just some part of it, otherwise this is all but unsolvable. Would have been nice if they’d included a ‘^’ to be explicit.
- Oskar
  
  Unless specifically indicated otherwise, that is how regular expressions are supposed to always work. The expression defines a regular language, and then you check and see if the string matches that language. If you want any part of the string that matches the language to match, add .* to the beginning and the end (which several of these regexes do).
  - DewiMorgan
    
    I cannot think of a single regular expression system where implicit anchoring is the default behavior.
    Typically, they require anchors to match a line beginning or end. So, to take an example from the puzzle,
    (di|ns|th|om)* would normally match any line which contained even one of those two-character particles, such as “xxxdiomyythy”, (the engine would reach the “di”, greedily match the “om” as well, then return without ever finding the later “th”). I suspect in this puzzle there are implied anchors, working like ^(di|ns|th|om)*$ and only matching strings which were composed entirely of the specified 2-character particles, like “omdithnsdidi”
    This guess is based only on the leading/trailing .* that you also noted: these would be pointless without implicit anchors.
    - blm
      
      Java’s Matcher class has matches and lookingAt methods with implicit anchoring (on both ends for matches, just at the start for lookingAt). It also has a find method that works “normally” (i.e. only anchored if the expression contains anchors), so implicit anchoring isn’t really the default, but it is available.
  - pdffs
    
    Depends on implementation though – a number of implementations will return substring matches unless anchors are included…
Will Murnane

Or try the interactive version I put together here: http://twoevils.net/cross-regex.html
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QZUMKTGFLO7UNFF6YWU5GT66EQ JuhanaS
  
  Have you been slashdotted or did your server go offline?
  - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QZUMKTGFLO7UNFF6YWU5GT66EQ JuhanaS
    
    At least I got to the page now.
- boomsb
  
  Finished without plowing through reams of paper, thanks for putting that up!
- blm
  
  Very nice!
aldeka

The puzzle’s solution (spoilers, duh): http://z.manicsages.org/puzzle/uploads/puzzle_files/50d697158c9cf.svg

Also information about the puzzle hunt it came from: http://web.mit.edu/puzzle/www/2013/
http://twitter.com/JmacDotOrg Jason McIntosh

Worth noting that this puzzle was designed by Dan Gulotta and Palmer Mebane for (as others have noted) the 2013 MIT mystery hunt, which took place last month.
http://profile.yahoo.com/LF3ZYYSMGVJW4G2ODWICW7IAAI Roger

It’s not so bad. It’s just Minefield gone wild. I took a hack at it for an hour and realized I needed to print out the puzzle several more times as my eraser marks are a serious detriment. I’m also creating a “.” notation to denote letter orientation and if the char has been cross verified among other things. It’s just a combination lock from hell…GIT HACKIN!
http://www.facebook.com/buddhaflow Sasha Shepherd

Fuck, it’s like Sudoku on crack.

I’m OK at regular expressions (not great, but OK), and this looks tough as nuts…

Fantastic puzzle, however.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/LF3ZYYSMGVJW4G2ODWICW7IAAI Roger
  
  It’s not that bad. Look at the “gimme” characters and write them down first. I think there are 4 or 5. Then just cycle through the three dimensions (it’s 6 sided, but it’s really three dimensions) checking the RegEx facts three ways as you go. It’s a bit tedious and I threw a lot of paper away. But, overall I have to say it’s really fun.
http://twitter.com/amanicdroid Dr. Chronobiologist

Now I have tw-.. shit, how many problems do I have now?
http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan

It’ll never catch on, mainstream.

But I wish I’d thought of it.
- http://twitter.com/tadasyoyolt Tadas Jelinek
  
  It should be only a part (although important) of general purpose programming course.
http://roman.st Roman Starkov

My solution: http://imgur.com/I7VLLHL. Can’t see what would limit the three remaining cells to a specific letter, I’m afraid.
- http://twitter.com/DenisMoskowitz Denis Moskowitz
  
  (…)1* means repeat the same 3 characters each time.
  - http://roman.st Roman Starkov
    
    Ooops, I read (…?)1* as ((…?)2)*
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Huh?
      - http://roman.st Roman Starkov
        
        What’s up with all the “Flagged for review”?
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        It looks like Disqus yanked them all and put them in the spam bin after they had already been up for awhile. Based on past behavior, I wouldn’t be too surprised if it happens again.
Spinkter

^[a]wesome [s]auce$
DewiMorgan

That was *so much fun*. I want more!
http://twitter.com/bergius Niklas Bergius

Hard. Took me two prints and two hours. Got too bold on the first paper :).