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Comments on Is it stuck in a counting loop?

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Is it stuck in a counting loop?

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Given a list of non-negative integers the function $f$ replaces every integer with the number of identical integers preceding it (not necessarily contiguously). So

f [1,1,2,2,1,3,3] = [1,2,1,2,3,1,2]

We will say that a list, $X$, is in a loop if there is some positive integer $n$ such that $f^n X = X$. That is, you can apply the function to $X$ some number of times to arrive at $X$.

Your task is to take a list as input and determine if that list is in a loop. You should output one of two consistent values, one if it is in a loop and the other if it is not.

This is code-golf. The goal is to minimize the size of your source code as measured in bytes.


A note: There are other ways to formulate this condition.

Test cases

[2,2] -> False
[1,1] -> True
[1,2] -> True
[1,1,2,2,3,3] -> True
[1,2,3,1,4,2,5,3] -> True
[1,2,1,3,1,2] -> True
[1,2,1,3,1,3,4,6] -> False
[1,2,2,3] -> False
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1 comment thread

Why 1 and not 0? (1 comment)
Why 1 and not 0?
Lundin‭ wrote 11 months ago

In case of for example the first 1, there are zero identical numbers preceding it. So how does it become 1 and not 0? Shouldn't the text rather say "the number of identical integers preceding it, including itself" or something like that.