Python

Trying to practice with using OOP and classes inside of python.

The idea that I am going to be aiming for, is to have a class to represent an elf, and then also a class that contains all of the elves together.

Unsure really about how classes work, so this will be an experiment!

Day 1

Part 1

Read in the data in python.

Lets first get all of the data inside and have a look at it.

file = "data/day1.txt"
f = open(file)
lines = f.read()
f.close()

lines = lines.split('\n')
lines[:10]

['5474', '4920', '5381', '8650', '11617', '7193', '8161', '', '10747', '5855']

A class for Elves.

I’ll want a class that is an elf, which at least to begin with will have an id number to identify which elf it is, but also a place to store which snacks they are carrying, and a function to count up the calories of all of the snacks they are carrying.

class Elf:
  def __init__(self, id = int(1)):
    self.snacks = []
    self.id = int(id)

  def add_snack(self, calories):
    self.snacks.append(calories)
    
  def cal_total(self):
    if len(self.snacks) == 0:
      return 0
    return sum(self.snacks)

Now we want a class than can hold multiple elves, with a function to add an elf, and a function to find which elf has the most calories.

class Mischief:
  def __init__(self):
    self.elves = []
  
  def add_elf(self):
    self.elves.append(Elf(len(self.elves)))
  
  def add_elves_and_snacks(self, lines):
    new_elf = True  
    counter = 0
    for snack in lines:
      if new_elf:
        self.add_elf()
        new_elf = False
      if snack != "":
        group.elves[counter].add_snack(int(snack))
      else:
        new_elf = True
        counter += 1
  
  def get_elf_max_cal(self):
    max_elf = self.elves[0]
    for elf in self.elves:
      if elf.cal_total() > max_elf.cal_total():
        max_elf = elf
    
    print(f"Elf No. {max_elf.id} with {max_elf.cal_total()} calories.")
    return max_elf

# setup the mischief of elves
group = Mischief()

# add the elves and their snacks
# I feel like this should be part of the setup, but I can't currenlty figure out
# how to get it working
group.add_elves_and_snacks(lines)

# find the elf with the most snacks!
group.get_elf_max_cal()

Elf No. 30 with 66306 calories.

<__main__.Elf at 0x7fd131ffc580>

Part 2

Find the top 3 elves, and how many calories total they all are carrying.

all_snack_totals = [elf.cal_total() for elf in group.elves]
all_snack_totals.sort(reverse=True)
top_3 = sum(all_snack_totals[:3])
print(f"The 3 elves with the most snacks have a combined {top_3} calories.")

The 3 elves with the most snacks have a combined 195292 calories.

While this finds the top 3 elf snack calories and adds them together, it’s unclear where those totals are coming from. Thant’s something I’d like to improve, but this is where I will leave this part for the python component.