AdventOfCodeBase

Template project for solving Advent of Code in C#, running on .NET 8.0.

• Features
• Usage
  • Creating a repository
  • Configuring
  • Running the project
  • Example solution
• Notes
  • Generating Solution Files
  • Automatic Debugger Break On Exception
• Background
• Contributing
• License

Features

• Simple configuration with config.json.
• Fetches puzzle input from adventofcode.com and stores it locally.
• Supports easily switching between debug-input and real input.
• Naive benchmarking, showing as millisecond count.

Usage

Creating a repository

To get started using this template, click the green "Use this template" button above (or this link) to create a new repository of your own from it.

If any solution files that you need are not already included, see Generating Previous Year's Solution Files.

Configuring

Create a new file named config.json at the root of the project.

{
  "cookie": "c0nt3nt",
  "year": 2020,
  "days": [0] 
}

If you run the program without adding this file, one will be created for you without a cookie field. The program will not be able to fetch puzzle inputs from adventofcode.com before a valid cookie is added to the configuration.

cookie - Note that c0nt3nt must be replaced with a valid cookie value that your browser stores when logging in at adventofcode.com. Instructions on locating your session cookie can be found here: https://github.com/wimglenn/advent-of-code-wim/issues/1

year - Specifies which year you wish to output solutions for when running the project. Defaults to the current year if left unspecified.

days - Specifies which days you wish to output solutions for when running the project. Defaults to current day if left unspecified and an event is actively running, otherwise defaults to 0.

The field supports list comprehension syntax and strings, meaning the following notations are valid.

• "1..4, 10" - runs day 1, 2, 3, 4, and 10.
• [1, 3, "5..9", 15] - runs day 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 15.
• 0 - runs all days

Running the project

Write your advent of code solutions in the appropriate solution classes, AdventOfCode.Solutions/Year<YYYY>/Day<DD>/Solution.cs.

Then run the project. From the command line you can use dotnet run, and optionally specify a day inline. For example, to run your solution for day 21:

dotnet run 21

Example solution

class Solution : SolutionBase
{
    // the constructor calls its base class with (day, year, name)
    public Solution() : base(02, 2021, "The Big Bad Sample Santa")
    {
        // you can use the constructor for preparations shared by both part one and two if you wish
    }
    
    protected override string SolvePartOne()
    {
        var lines = Input.SplitByNewline();
        return lines.First();
        // this would return the first line of the input as this part's solution
    }
    
    protected override string SolvePartTwo()
    {
        Debug = true;
        // we choose to use the debug input for this part
        // note that the debug input cannot be fetched automatically; it has to be copied into the solution folder manually
        return "";
    }
}

Notes

Generating Solution Files

Solution files can be automatically generated via GNU Make or PowerShell, and both methods use the included file solution.template, which is customisable. Both options default to current YEAR and all DAYS (1-25).

GNU Make

$ make solution-files [,YEAR] [,DAYS]

Requires GNU Make v4 or later.

PowerShell

> GenerateSolutionFiles.ps1 [-Year <Int>]

Requires PowerShell v3 or later due to the way $PSScriptRoot behaves. If you have Windows 8+ you should be set. Upgrades for previous versions, and installs for macOS and Linux can be found in Microsoft's Powershell Documentation

Automatic Debugger Break On Exception

When running your Solutions with a Debugger attached e.g. VSCode or Visual Studio the BaseSolution base class will try to pause/break the debugger when there is an uncaught Exception thrown by your solution part. This allows for inspection with the debugger without having to specifically set-up additional exception handling within the debugger or your solution.

Background

I intended to use Advent of Code 2019 to learn C#, and found that I wanted to try to put together a small solutions framework of my own. In that way this template came about as an introductory project to C# and .NET Core.

Contributing

If you wish to contribute to this project, simply fork and the clone the repository, make your changes, and submit a pull request. Contributions are quite welcome!

Please adhere to the conventional commit format.

License

MIT