[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-seo-504951-105":3,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":81,"doc-detail-504951-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"ok",{"site_id":7,"language":8,"slug":9,"title":10,"keywords":11,"description":12,"schema_data":13,"social_meta":74,"head_meta":76,"extra_data":78,"updated_unix":80},105,"en","picat-through-the-lens-of-advent-of-code","Picat Through the Lens of Advent of Code","","Picat is a logic-based, multi-paradigm programming language combining logic, functional, constraint, and imperative styles. The paper presents Picat solutions to five selected Advent of Code 2024 problems, focusing on reverse engineering, path-finding, circuit simulation, clique finding, and optimal planning. Built-in SAT-based constraint solving, tabling, and related features enable concise, declarative, and efficient implementations, often outperforming imperative approaches in effort and clarity. Comparisons and reported CPU measurements support the evaluation.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & Report",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/picat-through-the-lens-of-advent-of-code/504951/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/picat-through-the-lens-of-advent-of-code/504951.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"Muffet","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-17","2026-10-04",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":55},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",5,{"@type":57,"mainEntity":58},"FAQPage",[59,65,69],{"name":60,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":62},"Why is Advent of Code well-suited for using Picat?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"AoC problem types such as reverse engineering and path-finding fit Picat’s built-in strengths, including constraint solving, pattern matching, backtracking, and tabling for efficient modeling and reuse across parts of a daily challenge.","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"Which Picat features are highlighted in the paper’s solutions?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"The paper emphasizes SAT-based constraint solving for three combinatorial problems and tabling for two problems requiring dynamic programming, showing how these features support concise and high-performance solutions.",{"name":70,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":71},"What kinds of problems from Advent of Code 2024 are solved?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"The paper covers Day 23 (LAN party clique finding), Day 17 (Chronospatial Computer reverse engineering), Day 24 (Crossed Wires circuit simulation and repair), Day 16 (Reindeer Maze path-finding), and Day 21 (Keypad Conundrum optimal planning).","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":75,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":77,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":79,"site_id":7},504951,1791297055,{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":83},"success",[84,88,92,96,100,105,110,114,119,122,126],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":85,"show_sort_weight":86,"slug":87},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":89,"show_sort_weight":90,"slug":91},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":93,"show_sort_weight":94,"slug":95},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":55,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":97,"show_sort_weight":98,"slug":99},"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":101,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":112,"slug":113},8,30,"research-report",{"id":115,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":116,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":118},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":117,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":120,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":121},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":123,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":124,"show_sort_weight":123,"slug":125},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":127,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":128,"show_sort_weight":55,"slug":129},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":131},{"doc_id":79,"user_id":132,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":111,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":55,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145},962090768927,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_085a072bc5b1113ac321206ff7593b45","Picat Through the Lens of Advent of Code  \nNeng-Fa Zhou   \nCUNY Brooklyn College and Graduate Center [nzhou@acm.org](nzhou@acm.org)  \nCristian Grozea *  \nFraunhofer Institute FOKUS Berlin, Germany  \n[cristian.grozea@fokus.fraunhofer.de](cristian.grozea@fokus.fraunhofer.de)  \nHåkan Kjellerstrand  Independent Researcher, [hakank.org](hakank.org)  \n[hkjellerstrand@acm.org](hkjellerstrand@acm.org)  \nOisín Mac Fhearaí [denpashogai@gmail.com](denpashogai@gmail.com)  \nPicat is a logic-based, multi-paradigm programming language that integrates features from logic, functional, constraint, and imperative programming paradigms. This paper presents solutions to several problems from the 2024 Advent of Code (AoC). While AoC problems are not designed for any specific programming language, certain problem types, such as reverse engineering and path-finding, are particularly well-suited to Picat due to its built-in constraint solving, pattern matching, backtracking, and dynamic programming with tabling. This paper demonstrates that Picat’s features, especially its SAT-based constraint solving and tabling, enable concise, declarative, and highly efficient implementations of problems that would require significantly more effort in imperative languages.  \n1 Introduction  \nThe Advent of Code (AoC) is an annual programming challenge that presents a series of algorithmic problems[8], attracting programmers from diverse backgrounds worldwide. The problems range from simple puzzles to complex computational challenges, making them an excellent benchmark for evaluating programming languages and problem-solving paradigms. A defining feature of AoC is that each daily challenge has a first part, that is usually easier to solve, and a second part, that comes after a twist of the original problem proposed in the first part, making it generally much more difficult to solve and requiring flexibility such that the solution or at least the model defined for the first part can be reused.  \nPicat [17], a logic-based multi-paradigm programming language, offers a unique combination of logic, functional, constraint, and imperative programming styles. It is particularly well-suited for solving AoC problems due to its built-in constraint solving, pattern matching, backtracking, and dynamic programming with tabling features. These capabilities allow for concise, declarative, and highly efficient implementations of problems that would require significantly more effort in imperative languages.  \nIn this paper, we explore Picat solutions to five selected problems from the 2024 Advent of Code, demonstrating how Picat’s distinctive features provide elegant and efficient solutions. While there is work on the usage of Picat for various kinds of problems [3, 11], we demonstrate in this paper some of the new features of Picat added over the past decade. Specifically, we apply Picat’s SAT-based constraint solver to solve three combinatorial problems, showcasing its ability to efficiently model and solve constraint satisfaction problems. Additionally, we leverage tabling to solve two problems that require dynamic programming, illustrating how Picat’s built-in tabling mechanism simplifies recursive computations and optimizes performance.  \n*Cristian Grozea’s work has been partially funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, Germany) as part of the 6G Research and Innovation Cluster 6G-RIC under Grant 16KISK020K.  \nM. Gebser, D. Inclezan, F. Ricca, M. Carro & M. Truszczynski: 41st International Conference on Logic Programming (ICLP 2025) EPTCS 439, 2026, pp. 528–541, doi:10.4204/EPTCS.439.36  \n© Zhou, Grozea, Kjellerstrand, Mac Fhearaí This work is licensed under the  \nCreative Commons Attribution License.  \nZhou, Grozea, Kjellerstrand, Mac Fhearaí 529  \nThis paper presents Picat solutions for the following problems: Day 23: LAN party, a clique-finding graph problem; Day 17: Chronospatial Computer, a reverse-engineering puzzle; Day 24: Crossed Wires, a c","cbCaiss8BTatA2ai","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiss8BTatA2ai","pdf",261791,14,"English","# Introduction\n## The Advent of Code challenge structure\n# The Picat Language\n## Overview of Picat’s features and design foundations\n## Data types and usability extensions\n## Pattern matching and rule forms","[{\"question\":\"Why is Advent of Code well-suited for using Picat?\",\"answer\":\"AoC problem types such as reverse engineering and path-finding fit Picat’s built-in strengths, including constraint solving, pattern matching, backtracking, and tabling for efficient modeling and reuse across parts of a daily challenge.\"},{\"question\":\"Which Picat features are highlighted in the paper’s solutions?\",\"answer\":\"The paper emphasizes SAT-based constraint solving for three combinatorial problems and tabling for two problems requiring dynamic programming, showing how these features support concise and high-performance solutions.\"},{\"question\":\"What kinds of problems from Advent of Code 2024 are solved?\",\"answer\":\"The paper covers Day 23 (LAN party clique finding), Day 17 (Chronospatial Computer reverse engineering), Day 24 (Crossed Wires circuit simulation and repair), Day 16 (Reindeer Maze path-finding), and Day 21 (Keypad Conundrum optimal planning).\"}]","Picat Through the Lens of Advent of Code | PDF",1791080548,35]