Suggestion for exercising/compression methods

[Newb]

Hi all and happy new year too!

I need a suggestion by you guys

I'm a low level autoit programmer (and autoit is the only language i know).

I've already made some programs myself that helped me a lot in learning how a computer works, and how autoit works.

Now, since I have to learn to manage string in various ways, for exercising I was thinking about making a program which compresses files following a far too simple concept. I would read raw data from any file (Have you ever dragged a file into the notepad? That's it) and check with string reading (or eventually with RegExes) for similar longest strings in the whole file, then replace them with a single charachter which isn't present in that file, or with a customized combination, shorter than the ones found by the program. Decompression will be the same, but opposite.

Pratical Hypotetical Example:

File Raw Data is: ABBAABBAABBAKPEEKPEEKPEEej390jojnkwjsqABBAABBADOBODOBOABBAKPEEEnwuw9qeh9

Program will read it like this: ABBAABBAABBAKPEEKPEEKPEEej390jojnkwjsqABBAABBADOBODOBOABBAKPEEEnwuw9qeh9

As you see every similar string found in it should be noticed, and it should be replaced like this:

ABBA=X

KPEE=Y

DOBO=L

And the result would be:

XXXYYYej390jojnkwjsqXXLLXYnwuw9qeh9

Resulting in a compression of the file.

The decompression legend

ABBA=X

KPEE=Y

DOBO=L

would be stored in the file in some header for the decompression, which will be the opposite process.

That's it. What do you think, this could fit an exercise or it would be a disaster for me to try doing it?

In that second case, could you provide me some good exercising with strings?

PS: I know this is not you typical math-based compression method... and i don't know anything about how zlib, or other compression system works... so well, i put myself in your hands...

[Melba23]

Newb,

Disaster!

You would need to spend a lot of time just creating a file which met the (very strict) requirements to have enough repeatable sections while missing sufficient characters to permit sensible replacements. It might well take longer that the code to "compress" it.

If you want to practice with string, then I suggest you you parse some text and look for letter sequences to replace, but only when the sequence is a whole word and not just part. That means you have to cope with spaces, capitalisation, line endings and beginnings, string start and end. There are some very simple ways to do this with SREs - but coding something using the String* functions should keep you out of mischief for a while!

Here is a piece of standard text to start with:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Try to replace the following letter combinations with the corresponding numbers - but only if they are not part of another word:

et - 12
in - 34
ex - 56
id - 78
eu - 90

Happy New Year.

M23

[Newb]

Newb,

Disaster!

You would need to spend a lot of time just creating a file which met the (very strict) requirements to have enough repeatable sections while missing sufficient characters to permit sensible replacements. It might well take longer that the code to "compress" it.

If you want to practice with string, then I suggest you you parse some text and look for letter sequences to replace, but only when the sequence is a whole word and not just part. That means you have to cope with spaces, capitalisation, line endings and beginnings, string start and end. There are some very simple ways to do this with SREs - but coding something using the String* functions should keep you out of mischief for a while!

Here is a piece of standard text to start with:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Try to replace the following letter combinations with the corresponding numbers - but only if they are not part of another word:

et - 12
in - 34
ex - 56
id - 78
eu - 90

Happy New Year.

M23

AHAH! You always have good words for me!

Anyway, well, if that project is so bad, I will try to do replaces in that text

Tnx for suggestions. Happy new year