Implementations/Libraries/k4

k4 implementation

This implementation IS NOT 30W-compliant.

Here's an implementation in k4, a vector-programming (i.e., self-obfuscating) language that seems to me to be very true to the spirit of xkcd. The following shell script takes the graticule as an argument, uses standard standard unix tools to retrieve the current Dow opening price, and returns a URL for a Google map to the the upcoming Saturday's meetup. It assumes the q executable is in your PATH.

#!/bin/sh

test $# -eq 2 || exit 1
dow=`curl -s 'http://finance.google.com/finance?cid=983582'| \
 egrep -o '<span id="ref_983582_op">[^<]+</span>'| \
 sed -r 's/.*>(.*)<.*/\1/'|tr -d ,`

q -lat $1 -lon $2 -dow $dow<<"EOF"
\
(.q.set').(!:;,/)@\:.Q.opt .z.x;
h:.Q.n,6#.Q.A;c:16 xexp'-:'1+!16
u:"http://maps.google.com/maps?q="
d:.q.ssr[$.z.D+7-.q.mod[.z.D]7;".";"-"]
s:0N 16#,/$-15!"-"/:(d;dow);l:(lat;lon)
-1@u,"+"/:l,'1_'$sum'(h?/:.q.upper s)*\:c;
\\
EOF

For example, here's New York as of 2008-05-23:

% gh 40 -74
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=40.126648+-74.5475331

N.B., this was written on a Friday; I make no guarantee that it will produce useful results when run on any other day of the week (though Saturdays will probably work).

Adavies42 20:50, 23 May 2008 (UTC)