The Weekly Challenge: 364

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. HEADLINES

  2. SPONSOR

  3. RECAP

  4. PERL REVIEW

  5. RAKU REVIEW

  6. CHART

  7. NEW MEMBERS

  8. GUESTS

  9. TASK #1: Decrypt String

10. TASK #2: Goal Parser

HEADLINES

Welcome to the Week #364 of The Weekly Challenge.

Last week was the quietest week of 2026 in terms of regular and guest contributions. I hope that changes this week!

I am sure you have all noticed the new look of the Weekly Challenge website.

Why the change?

There are several reasons. First, the old design was quite clunky on mobile devices. I received several complaints from users who found it difficult to navigate. While I knew the workarounds and would share them when asked, I wasn’t sure if that was enough to keep everyone happy.

However, the primary driver for the makeover was our use of the Highcharts library. When I first implemented these charts, the library was free for personal use. Recently, I discovered that is no longer the case, so I decided to migrate to ChartJS library, which remains free.

Admittedly, I am not a frontend expert, and my knowledge in this area is limited. My initial attempts to migrate the charts were time consuming and difficult, I almost gave up. However, after successfully migrating the charts on my personal website a few days ago. I gained the confidence to try again. I’ve finally managed to complete the migration! While I was at it, I decided to overhaul the design and fix those mobile responsiveness issues. It turned out to be less daunting once I really dug into the code.

You may still find a few glitches here and there. Please let me know if you do, and I will find the time to fix them.

New Features I Love:

1. You can now comment on Challenges, Recaps, and BLOGS (powered by Disqus free tier).
2. Tag page: main menu INFO -> TAGS
3. Search: main menu SEARCH
4. Sponsors: main menu INFO -> SPONSORS

Sponsorship Update:

As many of you know, we currently lack a sponsor for the monthly prize. This led to a delay in declaring the champions for the first two months of 2026. Fortunately, a respected member of Perl community recently offered to sponsor the prize money. I will share more details once everything is finalised.

The new Sponsors page lists all past sponsors (to the best of my memory). If you have donated in the past and don’t see your name, please let me know so I can update the list.

Community Shout-out:

I am incredibly impressed by Lubos Kolouch and Paulo Custodio. They have been working tirelessly to solve past challenges in C, Java and Python. Their efforts are definitely going to shake up our language charts! In fact, I can already see Java making it into the TOP #10 pushing BQN down the list.

Welcome back, beespider, and thanks for your contributions in Uiua.

Below is my contributions to the Task #1 of Week #363. No solution in Raku this time, sorry.

Perl: source code

sub lie_detector {
    my $str = shift;

    my ($word) = $str =~ /^([^-—]+)/;
    $word =~ s/\s+$//;

    my $vow = () = $word =~ /[aeiou]/gi;
    my $con = () = $word =~ /[b-df-hj-np-tv-z]/gi;

    my ($v_phrase, $c_phrase) = $str =~ /([\w\s]+?)\s+vowels?.*?([\w\s]+?)\s+consonants?/;

    if (defined $v_phrase && defined $c_phrase) {
        $v_phrase =~ s/^\s+|\s+$//g;
        $c_phrase =~ s/^\s+|\s+$//g;

        my $v_claim = words2nums($v_phrase);
        my $c_claim = words2nums($c_phrase);

        return (defined $v_claim && defined $c_claim &&
                $v_claim == $vow && $c_claim == $con) ? "true" : "false";
    }

    return "false";
}

Python: source code

def lie_detector(s):
    match = re.match(r'^([^-—]+)', s)

    if not match:
        return "false"

    word = match.group(1).strip()
    vow  = len(re.findall(r'[aeiou]', word, re.IGNORECASE))
    con  = len(re.findall(r'[b-df-hj-np-tv-z]', word, re.IGNORECASE))

    m = re.search(r'([\w\s]+?)\s+vowels?\b.*?([\w\s]+?)\s+consonants?\b', s)
    if m:
        v_phrase = m.group(1).strip()
        c_phrase = m.group(2).strip()

        try:
            v_claim = w2n.word_to_num(v_phrase)
            c_claim = w2n.word_to_num(c_phrase)
            return "true" if v_claim == vow and c_claim == con else "false"
        except ValueError:
            return "false"

    return "false"

Thank you Team PWC, once again.

Happy Hacking!!

Last 5 weeks mainstream contribution stats. Thank you Team PWC for your support and encouragements.

Last 5 weeks guest contribution stats. Thank you each and every guest contributors for your time and efforts.

TOP 10 Guest Languages

Do you see your favourite language in the Top #10? If not then why not contribute regularly and make it to the top.

 1. Python     (4194)
 2. Rust       (1115)
 3. Ruby       (875)
 4. Haskell    (871)
 5. Lua        (852)
 6. C          (829)
 7. C++        (698)
 8. Go         (650)
 9. JavaScript (624)
10. Java       (526)

Blogs with Creative Title

1. Sheriff Detector by Arne Sommer.

2. Lying Sheriffs by Jorg Sommrey.

3. I Don’t Lie, Sheriff! by Matthias Muth.

4. I Shot The Subnet… by Packy Anderson.

5. Lies and lies within by Peter Campbell Smith.

6. Stringy Sheriff by Roger Bell_West.

7. The subnet detector by Simon Green.

GitHub Repository Stats

1. Commits: 48,227 (+96)

2. Pull Requests: 13,698 (+65)

3. Contributors: 275

4. Fork: 349

5. Stars: 210

SPONSOR

We are looking for sponsor for monthly prize pot of US $50. If anyone interested please get in touch with us at perlweeklychallenge@yahoo.com. Thanks for your support in advance. You can find more informations here.

RECAP

Quick recap of The Weekly Challenge - 363 by Mohammad Sajid Anwar.

PERL REVIEW

If you missed any past reviews then please check out the collection.

RAKU REVIEW

If you missed any past reviews then please check out the collection.

CHART

Please take a look at the charts showing interesting data.

I would like to THANK every member of the team for their valuable suggestions. Please do share your experience with us.

NEW MEMBERS

Please find out How to contribute?, if you have any doubts.

Please try the excellent tool EZPWC created by respected member Saif Ahmed of Team PWC.

GUESTS

Please check out the guest contributions for the Week #363.

Please find past solutions by respected guests. Please share your creative solutions in other languages.

Task 1: Decrypt String

Submitted by: Mohammad Sajid Anwar

You are given a string formed by digits and ‘#'.

Write a script to map the given string to English lowercase characters following the given rules.

- Characters 'a' to 'i' are represented by '1' to '9' respectively.
- Characters 'j' to 'z' are represented by '10#' to '26#' respectively.

Example 1

Input: $str = "10#11#12"
Output: "jkab"

10# -> j
11# -> k
1   -> a
2   -> b

Example 2

Input: $str = "1326#"
Output: "acz"

1   -> a
3   -> c
26# -> z

Example 3

Input: $str = "25#24#123"
Output: "yxabc"

25# -> y
24# -> x
1   -> a
2   -> b
3   -> c

Example 4

Input: $str = "20#5"
Output: "te"

20# -> t
5   -> e

Example 5

Input: $str = "1910#26#"
Output: "aijz"

1   -> a
9   -> i
10# -> j
26# -> z

Task 2: Goal Parser

Submitted by: Mohammad Sajid Anwar

You are given a string, $str.

Write a script to interpret the given string using Goal Parser.

The Goal Parser interprets “G” as the string “G”, “()” as the string “o”, and “(al)” as the string “al”. The interpreted strings are then concatenated in the original order.

Example 1

Input: $str = "G()(al)"
Output: "Goal"

G    -> "G"
()   -> "o"
(al) -> "al"

Example 2

Input: $str = "G()()()()(al)"
Output: "Gooooal"

G       -> "G"
four () -> "oooo"
(al)    -> "al"

Example 3

Input: $str = "(al)G(al)()()"
Output: "alGaloo"

(al) -> "al"
G    -> "G"
(al) -> "al"
()   -> "o"
()   -> "o"

Example 4

Input: $str = "()G()G"
Output: "oGoG"

() -> "o"
G  -> "G"
() -> "o"
G  -> "G"

Example 5

Input: $str = "(al)(al)G()()"
Output: "alalGoo"

(al) -> "al"
(al) -> "al"
G    -> "G"
()   -> "o"
()   -> "o"

Last date to submit the solution 23:59 (UK Time) Sunday 15th March 2026.