Code golf is a competition in which participants aim to write the shortest possible program to solve a given problem. In this competition, the code length is measured in terms of the number of characters in the source code, excluding comments and whitespace.
The score for a code golf submission is calculated based on the following formula:
score = numChars + penaltyPerChar * numChars + (penaltyMultiplier - 1) * (numChars + penaltyPerChar * numChars) + testCasesPenalty
where:
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numChars is the number of characters in the source code.
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penaltyPerChar is a penalty value that is added to the number of characters for each language, to account for the fact that some languages are more concise than others. This value is specified for each language and is constant.
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penaltyMultiplier is a penalty value that is multiplied to the number of characters for each language, to account for the fact that some languages are more powerful than others. This value is specified for each language and is constant.
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testCasesPenalty is a penalty value that is subtracted from the score based on the number of test cases passed. This penalty is proportional to the percentage of test cases that were not passed.
The penalty values for penaltyPerChar and penaltyMultiplier are specified for each language and are constant. These values are designed to reflect the relative conciseness and power of each language compared to a baseline language (usually the shortest program in a particular competition).
Here are some example penalty values for languages used:
| Language | penaltyPerChar | penaltyMultiplier |
|---|---|---|
| Python | 0.5 | 1.2 |
| C++ | 0.3 | 1.1 |
| Java | 0.2 | 1.05 |
| JavaScript | 0.4 | 1.15 |
| Ruby | 0.4 | 1.15 |
| PHP | 0.3 | 1.1 |
The testCasesPenalty is a penalty value that is subtracted from the score based on the number of test cases passed. This penalty is proportional to the percentage of test cases that were not passed.
The formula for testCasesPenalty is:
testCasesPenalty = (numTotalTests - numPassedTests) / numTotalTests * 100
where numTotalTests is the total number of test cases, and numPassedTests is the number of test cases that were passed by the submission.
The testCasesPenalty represents the percentage of test cases that were not passed, and is multiplied by 100 to convert it to a score.
The total score for a submission is the sum of the numChars, penaltyPerChar, penaltyMultiplier, and testCasesPenalty values, as calculated by the above formula.
Submissions with lower scores are considered to be better than submissions with higher scores, as they are shorter, more concise, and solve more test cases.