Recently I came across a great blog post introducing ASCIImage program. What does it do? Given:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . A B . . . . . . . . . J # # . . . . . . . . . # # # . . . . . . . . . # # # . . . . . . . . . I # C . . . . . . . . H # D . . . . . . . # # # . . . . . . . # # # . . . . . . . G # # . . . . . . . . F E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Then: Yay! Now every programmer can be an icon designer ...and it makes for decent F# kata. We need to connect the dots (denoted by letters) and following rules apply:

• A single isolated dot encodes 1 pixel
• A sequence of dots (i.e. consecutive letters: A, B, C...) translates to a polygon
• A dot repeated four times defines an ellipse
• Finally, a dot repeated two times defines a line

I decided to introduce some minor format changes. I wanted the input format to be self-contained without the need for providing additional code (i.e. blocks in Objective-C version). Just create a text file, run program and voilà, see the result. I choose to support only black (solid) and white (transparent) shapes. Now letters A..Z encode the former and a..z the latter. Let's start with type-first approach: type Dot = int * int type Shape = | Pixel of Dot | Line of Dot * Dot | Ellipse of Dot * Dot * Dot * Dot | Polygon of Dot list type Opacity = Solid | Transparent type ParserApi = string [] -> (Opacity * Shape) list Our goal is to implement ParserApi function transforming ASCII representation into list of shapes. We can start by extracting dots with their positions (string [] -> ((Dot * Opacity) * int) list): let ascii2dots (arr : string []) = let (|InRange|_|) first last = function | c when c >= first && c <= last -> Some(int(c) - int(first)) | _ -> None .Replace(" ", "") for x in 0..row.Length - 1 do match row. with | InRange 'A' 'Z' idx -> yield (((x, y), Solid), idx) | InRange 'a' 'z' idx -> yield (((x, y), Transparent), idx) | _ -> () ] As you can see, F# features like pattern matching, active patterns (|InRange|) and defining list with "yields" () make for very concise and readable code. Let's pretend that we have an active pattern for every rule. Those patterns would examine the beginning of the list and if matched return one or more dots making the shape, its opacity and the tail - list of unmatched dots. Given that we could write parser in just a few lines: let rec parse dots = let api : ParserApi = fun rep -> rep |> ascii2dots |> List.sortBy snd |> parse Recursive list definition with yield bang - sweet! And now the time has come for remaining patterns. The dot is considered "single" if the next one is skipped (e.g. A, C, E...) or is the last one. Piece of cake: let (|Single|_|) = function | ((p, op), i1)::(d2, i2)::tail when i2 = i1 + 2 -> Some(p, op, (d2, i2)::tail) | ((p, op), _)::[] -> Some(p, op, []) | _ -> None Patterns for dots repeated 4 or 2 times are also straightforward: let (|Quad|_|) = function | ((p1, op), i1)::((p2, _), i2)::((p3, _), i3)::((p4, _), i4)::tail when i1 = i2 && i2 = i3 && i3 = i4 -> Some((p1, p2, p3, p4), op, tail) | _ -> None let (|Duo|_|) = function | ((p1, op), i1)::((p2, _), i2)::tail when i1 = i2 -> Some((p1, p2), op, tail) | _ -> None Beware, they must be applied in order. The most difficult pattern is the sequence because we need to collect unspecified number of consecutive dots: let (|Sequence|_|) dots = let wrapResult points tail = match points with | (_, op)::_ -> Some(points |> List.map fst |> List.rev, op, tail) | [] -> None let rec collect acc = function | (d1, i1)::(d2, i2)::tail when i2 = i1 + 1 -> collect (d1::acc) ((d2, i2)::tail) | Single(p, op, tail) -> wrapResult ((p, op)::acc) tail | tail -> wrapResult acc tail collect [] dots That's all - parser is ready. What's left is to generate bitmap from list of shapes. But drawing is boring: mostly an API driven code. I'll show you only the type signature (the rest is on GitHub): type DrawingApi = Parser.ParserApi -> int -> string [] -> System.Drawing.Bitmap Given a parser, scale and ASCII representation, DrawingApi implementation should return a bitmap. Drawing module depends only on a parser abstraction. In the composition root (aka main) you tie it together: open System open System.IO let ascii2image inputFile scale = let asciiRep = File.ReadAllLines(inputFile) // Poor man's dependency injection let draw = DrawingImplementation.api ParserImplementation.api let bitmap = draw scale asciiRep bitmap.Save(inputFile.Replace(".txt", ".png"), System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Png) let main = function | -> ascii2image inputFile 1; 0 | -> ascii2image inputFile (Int32.Parse(scale)); 0 | _ -> printfn "Example usage: ascii2image file.txt"; -1 You can find full source code on GitHub.

Final thoughts

Code above is twice as long as my first attempt. For example, you could inline all the active patterns and make it one complicated recursive function. But I wanted it to be explicit - no comments, the code should speak for itself. Oh, almost forgot. Let's draw some familiar logo :)

. . H # I A # . . . . c . K # # d J # # . . . . . . . b # # # # . W # # X . . . # # # # Z # # Y . . . . # # # A . b . . . . . b # A R # # S . . . . # # # U # # T . . . # # # # . . . . . b # # # # . f . M # # e N # # . . . . P # O A # # . . .