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https://github.com/39services/ansible_advent_of_code_2022

Advent of Code 2022, in my golden hammer, Ansible!
https://github.com/39services/ansible_advent_of_code_2022

advent-of-code advent-of-code-2022 ansible aoc22

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Advent of Code 2022, in my golden hammer, Ansible!

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README 

        
Advent of Code 2022, in Ansible!

================================



This repository contains my solutions to the [Advent of Code 2022](https://adventofcode.com/2022) challenges!  



To challenge myself a lot, I decided to write these in my golden hammer, [Ansible](https://www.ansible.com/). I will regret this! :​D  



For context, Ansible is a configuration management tool that is used to configure servers. It is not meant to be used as a programming language and it is not very good at it. It does however come with a strong (in-line) Jinja2 templating engine and it exposes some of the Python objects it uses internally, so it is possible to do some programming with it. The Python methods don't end up being very useful since they're hard to chain together and they don't return anything useful aside from slightly manipulating the data, something Ansible and Jinja2 filters are much better at.  



## [Goals](#goals)



I want this to actually be solving Advent of Code in Ansible, not using Ansible to call Python modules, shell scripts or other external programs. For this reason I will try to use the Ansible Collections `ansible.builtin`, `ansible.utils` and `community.general` for modules and filters as much as possible.  



This means the bulk of the operations will be done with `ansible.builtin.set_fact` combined with many loops, whens, untils and other Ansible magic! This repository will likely end up containing a lot of Jinja2 statements that I hope will end up being useful to know outside of this challenge.



I started this back in December of 2022 but did not get around to finishing it. My goal is to finish it before the 2023 edition starts. Maybe I'll do something even worse for that one! Terraform, maybe? :​D  



I'm not even gonna bother with Ansible Lint for this one, I'm sure it will be very unhappy with me! :​D



Side note, GitHub Copilot is the one adding these ":​D" at the end of my sentences, I'm not that happy about doing this! :​D  



## [Results](#results)

Day | Name | Stars | Reaction | Time to run

----|------|:-----:|:---------:|-----------:

[1](./roles/day1/tasks/main.yml) | [Calorie Counting](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/1) | ⭐ ⭐ | 🤪 | 6s

[2](./roles/day2/tasks/main.yml) | [Rock Paper Scissors](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/2) | ⭐ ⭐ | 😝 | 1m 34s

[3](./roles/day3/tasks/main.yml) | [Rucksack Reorganization](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/3) | ⭐ ⭐ | 😏 | 22s

[4](./roles/day4/tasks/main.yml) | [Camp Cleanup](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/4) | ⭐ ⭐ | 😨 |  7m 9s

[5](./roles/day5/tasks/main.yml) | [Supply Stacks](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/5) | ⭐ ⭐ | 😱 | 6m 24s

[6](./roles/day6/tasks/main.yml) | [Tuning Trouble](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/6) | ⭐ ⭐ | 😌 | 1m 31s

[7](./roles/day7/tasks/main.yml) | [No Space Left On Device](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/7) | | 🤯 |

[8](./roles/day8/tasks/main.yml) | [Treetop Tree House](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/8) | ⭐ ⭐ | 😵 | 3h 45m 47s

[9](./roles/day9/tasks/main.yml) | [Rope Bridge](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/9) | | |

[10](./roles/day10/tasks/main.yml) | [Cathode-Ray Tube](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/10) | | |

[11](./roles/day11/tasks/main.yml) | [Monkey in the Middle](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/11) | | |

[12](./roles/day12/tasks/main.yml) | [Hill Climbing Algorithm](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/12) | | |

[13](./roles/day13/tasks/main.yml) | [Distress Signal](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/13) | | |

[14](./roles/day14/tasks/main.yml) | [Regolith Reservoir](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/14) | | |

[15](./roles/day15/tasks/main.yml) | [Beacon Exclusion Zone](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/15) | | |

[16](./roles/day16/tasks/main.yml) | [Proboscidea Volcanium](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/16) | | |

[17](./roles/day17/tasks/main.yml) | [Pyroclastic Flow](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/17) | | |

[18](./roles/day18/tasks/main.yml) | [Boiling Boulders](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/18) | | |

[19](./roles/day19/tasks/main.yml) | [Not Enough Minerals](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/19) | | |

[20](./roles/day20/tasks/main.yml) | [Grove Positioning System](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/20) | | |

[21](./roles/day21/tasks/main.yml) | [Monkey Math](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/21) | | |

[22](./roles/day22/tasks/main.yml) | [Monkey Map](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/22) | | |

[23](./roles/day23/tasks/main.yml) | [Unstable Diffusion](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/23) | | |

[24](./roles/day24/tasks/main.yml) | [Blizzard Basin](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/24) | | |

[25](./roles/day25/tasks/main.yml) | [Full of Hot Air](https://adventofcode.com/2022/day/25) | | |



Times are for the real inputs, on a Ryzen 9 7950X with 64GB of CL30 RAM.  

I had previously run some of these on a Ryzen 5 5600X, it seems the 7950X is about 33% faster.  



The "Reaction" column is how I felt about the puzzle and how hellish it was to solve in Ansible.  



## [How to run](#how-to-run)

The Ansible code will run completely in memory on the local machine, so no need to configure hosts.  



To run the code, you will need to have Ansible installed. You can install it with `pip install ansible`.  



Then, you can run the code with `ansible-playbook playbooks/all.yml`.  



This will only use the example inputs given by advent of code, these are quite small and shouldn't take too long to run.  

To use the real inputs I was given, run the command again and add `-i inputs`. The inputs are located in files in `inputs/group_vars/all/day*.yml`.  



| :exclamation:  Real inputs are very large and may take several hours to process   |

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------|



Then, you can run the code with `ansible-playbook playbooks/all.yml -i inputs`.  



### [Running specific days](#running-specific-days)

To limit it to specific days you can use tags. Some days can take a while, Ansible was never meant to be used like this! :​)



For example, to run only day 1, you can run `ansible-playbook playbook.yml --tags day1`.  



## [Info](#info)

You can find more on Ansible filters here: [Ansible Filters documentation](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/playbooks_filters.html).  

This is not a comprehensive list, and Ansible Collections can include more filters. Check [#goals](#goals) for which filters I will use.  



The following Jinja2 Filters are also available: [List of Jinja2 filters](https://jinja.palletsprojects.com/en/3.1.x/templates/#list-of-builtin-filters).  



While the filters and Jinja2 templating engine is primarily made to write configuration files, it is available in-line in Ansible tasks. Ansible's flow control statements interpret the input as a Jinja2 template, which is what allows for most of the flexibility you see here. Any text put inside Jinja2 delimiters will be interpreted as Jinja2 for any text, this allows for data manipulation and finer flow control.  



## [License](#license)

The code is licensed under the MIT license, feel free to take inspiration and learn from my awful Jinja2 statements! I regularly use this repository as a cheat sheet for Jinja2 and Ansible filters so I hope it can be useful to others as well.