Mathematics requirements
(a) We assume discrete math, college algebra, and trigonometry.
(b) At least half of the problems can be solved with no additional math. (That's at least 4 out of 7 problems or 5 out of 9 problems.) Specifically, this means that either the problem doesn't use higher math at all, or if it does, formulas are provided that can be understood by teams that just know (a).
(c) "Higher math" may include matrix operations and 3D vector operations. In other situations needed mathematical formulas will be provided, for instance for statistics or numerical calculation or approximation of areas or volumes not covered in (a). Note that the world finals assume at least this much math.
Input Specifications
The current input specification goes back to the time when Pascal was an allowed
contest language, and all input was structured to accommodate Pascal's
I/O limitations. That is no longer the
case. In an input file where all the data to read is numbers, and we have
explicitly given counts or sentinels, line structure is irrelevant. For
example, to read the next integer into variable n from input stream inf in C
or C++ or a Scanner inf in Java:
C: fscanf(inf, "%d", &n);
C++: inf >> n;
Java: n = inf.nextInt()
Specifying whitespace structure encourages teams to use fancier input mechanisms than needed, and makes it harder for the judges to have automated tests of their input format. Our opinion is that having less structure for the input will result in simpler student programs and more reliable judging data.
The proposed input specification is:
"The input specification for a problem will refer to a line of input when the line is considered as a unit where the number and position of the spaces are significant. A line is always terminated by a newline. All other data in an input specification will be individual pieces of data that are strings called tokens. Tokens are numbers, words, and any strings which do not contain any whitespace. A token may be preceded by any combination of blanks and newlines. Line data not at the beginning of the input must be preceded by a line ending with a nonblank character. No line ends with whitespace. The only whitespace will be blanks and newlines."
When token data directly precedes line data, teams need to remember to clear the newline after the last token at the end of the line before the line data.
Examples of some old and new input specifications follow. Where ... appears in both an old and new example, they refer to the same text, not having to do with spacing:
MCPC 2007 D. Persistent Bits
Input: There are from one to sixteen datasets followed by a line containing only 0. Each dataset is a line containing decimal integer values for A, B, C, and S, separated by single blanks.
could be rewritten for 2010 as
Input: There are from one to sixteen datasets followed by a 0. Each dataset contains decimal integer values for A, B, C, and S.
MCPC 2007 G. Guard
Input: The input will consist of one to sixteen data sets, followed by a line containing only 0. On each line the data will consist of blank separated tokens.
The first line of a dataset contains integers p c g, where.....
Next in the dataset are a total of p groups of four tokens, each consisting of a capital letter and three nonnegative integers L x y v indicating the point ( x, y) with label L contains an item with value v. If p is no greater than 6, these groups will all be on one line. If p is greater than 6, then the seventh and further groups will be on the next line. .....
The last line of a dataset contains c strings of letters, ....
would be simpler in the new spcification:
Input: The input will consist of one to sixteen data sets, followed by a 0.
A dataset starts with integers p, c, and g, where ....
Next in the dataset are a total of p groups of four tokens, each consisting of a capital letter and three nonnegative integers L, x, y, v indicating the point ( x, y) with label L contains an item with value v. .....
The dataset ends with c strings of letters, ....
MCPC 2006 A. Quicksum is line oriented, and would remain the same:
Input: The input consists of one or more packets followed by a line containing only # that signals the end of the input. Each packet is on a line by itself, does not begin or end with a space, and contains from 1 to 255 characters.
Finally, a made-up new format input to illustrate the combination of tokens and newlines:
Input: The input starts with a number T, the total number of datasets to follow. Each dataset starts with a title line, followed by a number n, and then n integers.
Sample input will likely continue to be presented as shown in the MCPC 2007 examples D and G, putting related parts on one line for human readers. On problems like these, where all data is tokens, the judge's data could all be on one line with multiple spaces separating tokens, or in theory one token could be on every other line.... Reading a token at a time, these variations in whitespace would not matter. Problem A from 2006 is line oriented, so each string would continue to be separated by a single newline. In the final made-up example each number should be read as a token. The newline before each title needs to be explicitly read past before the title line is read.
The detailed output files specifications are remaining the same to continue to allow solution checking by file matching.