Advent Of Code 2016

A bunch of solutions for the Advent of Code 2016

First 10 days written in C# using LINQPad

Edit January 2021

Added some more solutions, this time in C++ as a learning experience. Each day is a standalone program which can be compiled with, probably, any modern, standard C++ compiler.

Mostly targetting C++ 14 (and higher) although most should work when targetting C++11 too. The compilers installed with the current version of Visual Studio 2019 default to C++14, I believe. Don't think you can specifically target C++11 in the 2019 MSVC++ compiler.

Most are written using Visual Studio Code with the Microsoft C/C++ extension package installed. Debugging within VS Code works fine for MSVC++ on Windows and g++ on Linux/WSL. Other combinations (eg g++/Win, clang/Linux etc) may or may not work well for debugging. See launch.json and tasks.json files and the VS Code page for C++.

Windows

With Visual Studio installed, or appropriate C++ build/compile tools (where NN is the required day, eg day12.cpp / day12.exe):

    $> cl /EHsc /Fe: dayNN.exe dayNN.cpp

with debug info

    $> cl /Zi /EHsc /Fe: dayNN.exe dayNN.cpp

and with optimisations

    $> cl /EHsc /O2 /Fe: dayNN.exe dayNN.cpp

or with Clang:

     $> clang -o dayNN.exe dayNN.cpp

or GNU/gcc (using MinGW from https://nuwen.net/mingw.html):

     $> g++ -o dayNN.exe dayNN.cpp
     or
     $> g++ -O -o dayNN.exe dayNN.cpp

etc

Make sure that the compiler and necessary build tools are in the current path. The best way to do this is to run the builds from the Visual Studio command prompt.

Clang on Windows

The clang compiler used here is the one that comes with Visual Studio 2019 (currently clang v10.0). If you try and compile using -std=c++11 some (most?) of the projects fail but if you do the same on Linux/WSL then they build fine. Compiling on Windows without the -std flag or with -std=c++14 (or higher) works fine. I guess it's to do with C++ extensions or the standard library and the use of auto etc but I haven't dug far enough to find out what. g++ seems to work fine with the C++11 flag on Windows. Ho well, doesn't really matter. Move on.

GNU/g++ on Windows

A suitable toolchain for building C++ with GNU/g++ on Windows can be found at https://nuwen.net/mingw.html or https://www.msys2.org/. Follow the relevant instructions to install it all. Again, building is best done from the appropriate command prompt so that all necessary tools/compilers etc are in the expected places and on the Windows system path.

Linux or WSL2

With appropriate C++ compiler and build essential tools installed. eg:

   $> clang -o dayNN dayNN.cpp

or, with optimisations and other bits, perhaps

    $> clang -O3 -std=c++17 -o dayNN dayNN.cpp

GNU/g++:

    $> g++ -o dayNN dayNN.cpp

etc, etc

NB: Days 14 & 17

Days 14 and 17 need to be compiled with an MD5 implementation. Hence the build command needs to be adjusted. eg:

    $> cl /EHsc /Fe: day14.exe day14.cpp md5.cpp

and similar adjustments for the other compilers.