adventofcode

My solutions to Advent of Code.

The solution template I use is a modified version of David Brownman's amazing Python solution template. Python 3.12 or higher is required to run these solutions; if you want to run them yourself and are having trouble, let me know in a GitHub issue on this repo.

In 2024, I wrote blog posts on my personal website explaining my solutions for each day. Starting in 2025, I've been rewriting my solutions to use their current template, and writing step-by-step explanations of them for use on a separate portion of my website: https://aoc.winslowjosiah.com. Check it out if you're interested!

Usage

To run a solution for a given year and day, run aoc.py with the following options:

Short Option	Long Option	Parameter(s)	Explanation
-h	--help	none	Show a help message and exit.
-y	--year	n, an integer	The year for which to run the solution.
-d	--day	n, an integer between 1 and 25	The day for which to run the solution.
-t	--test	none	If provided, use the test input instead of the full puzzle input.
N/A	--debug	none	If provided, print things passed to self.debug() within the solution.
-b	--benchmark	n, a non-negative integer (default 100)	If provided, benchmark the solution by running it n times and averaging the runtime.
-s	--slow	none	If provided, run solution functions marked as @slow (which aren't run by default).
-p	--profile	none	If provided, profile the solution with cProfile.

Examples

These examples assume that the project's root directory is opened in your favorite terminal.

Run 2023 Day 1:

py aoc.py -y 2023 -d 1

Run 2023 Day 7, and benchmark (with 100 runs by default):

py aoc.py -y 2023 -d 7 -b

Run 2023 Day 13, and benchmark with 1,000 runs:

py aoc.py -y 2023 -d 13 -b 1000

Run 2023 Day 18 on the test input:

py aoc.py -y 2023 -d 18 -t

start.py

start.py is for automatically initializing the files for a new day. It takes the following options:

Short Option	Long Option	Parameter(s)	Explanation
-h	--help	none	Show a help message and exit.
-y	--year	n, an integer	The year for which to create the solution file.
-d	--day	n, an integer between 1 and 25	The day for which to create the solution file.

Solution Blog

I have a blog with full step-by-step explanations of my Advent of Code solutions at https://aoc.winslowjosiah.com. I hope to make it a good resource for anyone who's stuck on an Advent of Code puzzle, or for anyone who's curious about my thought process and solutions specifically.

The files for that blog live in the blog folder of this repository, and it updates automatically when I push to it thanks to the magic of GitHub Pages. I use the Astro framework (mainly because they support sweet-looking code blocks using Expressive Code), and it's styled using the holiday.css stylesheet.

If you have any feedback about the blog, opening a GitHub issue on this repo is a good place to do that; otherwise, you can contact me through Mastodon, Twitter, or my email.

TODO

• Complete past AoCs
  • 2015
  • 2016
  • 2017
  • 2018
  • 2019
  • 2020
  • 2021
  • 2022
  • 2023
  • 2024 (have solved; have not explained on new blog)
  • 2025
• Automatically retrieve my puzzle input
• Automatically submit my answers to the Advent of Code website