# Advent of Code Helper [](https://travis-ci.org/ejhobbs/Advent-Of-Code) [](https://codecov.io/gh/akosasante/Advent-Of-Code-Helper-Elixir) [](https://hex.pm/packages/advent_of_code_helper) [](https://hexdocs.pm/advent_of_code_helper/api-reference.html)
This Elixir package allows you to quickly grab inputs for Advent of ode puzzles, and not have to worry about manually pasting them in! After you've got a puzzle input for the first time, the result is stored on disk so every subsequent request bypasses the need to download it from the server again.
## Usage
### Via Mix Tasks
There are two mix tasks included in this library: `advent.setup_day` and `advent.run_day`.
For creating a new directory and `.ex` file for a given Advent puzzle, use the setup command:
`mix advent.setup_day <year> <day>` or `mix advent.setup_day <day>`
where year is a four-digit integer (eg: 2022) and day is a number between 1 and 25. Year will be inferred as the current year if it's not passed in. A folder will be created under the `lib` directory of the mix project, and a skeleton module will be generated.
To run the code you've added to the generated template file, use the run command:
`mix advent.run_day day=<day> year=<year> bench=<boolean> split=<splitOption> sep=<sep> trim=<boolean>`
Only `day` is a required argument. `Year` will be inferred as current year if it's not given, otherwise it should be a 4-digit number.
If bench is `true`, the task will run the day's puzzles through [benchee](https://github.com/bencheeorg/benchee) and return the benchmark results.
By default, (if no `split` or `sep` options are passed in), the puzzle input will be read as a string, split on newlines, and the resulting list will be passed into the puzzle module to be run.
You can change this behaviour by passing in either `list`, `stream`, or `false` for split. This will split the string into a List, a Stream, or leave the input as-is, respectively. The separator to use as the split boundary can be changed by passing in a `sep` argument; trimming extra newlines/whitespace can be enabled by setting `trim` to `true`.
### Directly calling AdventOfCodeHelper
There are two main functions for fetching the puzzle input:
```elixir
AdventOfCodeHelper.get_input(year,day) # Specify year and day for puzzle
AdventOfCodeHelper.get_input(day) # Automatically gets puzzle from most recent year
```
Both of these functions will simply return a tuple `{:ok, value}` if they succeed, where `value` is the puzzle input in the form of a `String`, or `{:fail, message}` if there was something wrong.
You can also use the provided helpers for splitting the string input into a List or Stream: `split_to_list/2` and `split_to_stream/2`.
### Configuration
There are two configuration directives that are also needed to make this package work correctly. Simply add the following to your `config/config.exs`
```elixir
config :advent_of_code_helper,
session: "<session string>",
cache_dir: ".cache/" # this is a sensible default, but feel free to put it wherever you have write access
```
The session string will need to be taken from [adventofcode.com](https://adventofcode.com), it will be under cookies as `session`. You can extract the value using the inspector/devTools in your browser of choice.
## Installation
This package can be installed by adding `advent_of_code_helper` to your list of dependencies in `mix.exs`:
```elixir
def deps do
[
{:advent_of_code_helper, "~> 0.3.1"}
]
end
```
