Implement the classic method for composing secret messages called a square code.
Given an English text, output the encoded version of that text.
First, the input is normalized: the spaces and punctuation are removed from the English text and the message is downcased.
Then, the normalized characters are broken into rows. These rows can be regarded as forming a rectangle when printed with intervening newlines.
For example, the sentence
If man was meant to stay on the ground, god would have given us roots.
is normalized to:
ifmanwasmeanttostayonthegroundgodwouldhavegivenusroots
The plaintext should be organized in to a rectangle. The size of the
rectangle (r x c
) should be decided by the length of the message,
such that c >= r
and c - r <= 1
, where c
is the number of columns
and r
is the number of rows.
Our normalized text is 54 characters long, dictating a rectangle with
c = 8
and r = 7
:
ifmanwas
meanttos
tayonthe
groundgo
dwouldha
vegivenu
sroots
The coded message is obtained by reading down the columns going left to right.
The message above is coded as:
imtgdvsfearwermayoogoanouuiontnnlvtwttddesaohghnsseoau
Output the encoded text in chunks. Phrases that fill perfect rectangles
(r X c)
should be output c
chunks of r
length, separated by spaces.
Phrases that do not fill perfect rectangles will have n
empty spaces.
Those spaces should be distributed evenly, added to the end of the last
n
chunks.
imtgdvs fearwer mayoogo anouuio ntnnlvt wttddes aohghn sseoau
Notice that were we to stack these, we could visually decode the cyphertext back in to the original message:
imtgdvs
fearwer
mayoogo
anouuio
ntnnlvt
wttddes
aohghn
sseoau
To run the tests run the command go test
from within the exercise directory.
If the test suite contains benchmarks, you can run these with the -bench
flag:
go test -bench .
Keep in mind that each reviewer will run benchmarks on a different machine, with different specs, so the results from these benchmark tests may vary.
For more detailed information about the Go track, including how to get help if you're having trouble, please visit the exercism.io Go language page.
J Dalbey's Programming Practice problems http://users.csc.calpoly.edu/~jdalbey/103/Projects/ProgrammingPractice.html
It's possible to submit an incomplete solution so you can see how others have completed the exercise.