# aider_polyglot / polyglot_cpp_crypto-square

- taskset: [aider_polyglot](https://harnessreport.com/tasks/aider_polyglot.md)
- difficulty: medium
- category: coding-exercises
- language: cpp
- runnable from the site: no
- agent timeout: 1800s

## Results by harness

_none yet_

## Instruction

```
# Instructions

Implement the classic method for composing secret messages called a square code.

Given an English text, output the encoded version of that text.

First, the input is normalized: the spaces and punctuation are removed from the English text and the message is down-cased.

Then, the normalized characters are broken into rows.
These rows can be regarded as forming a rectangle when printed with intervening newlines.

For example, the sentence

```text
"If man was meant to stay on the ground, god would have given us roots."
```

is normalized to:

```text
"ifmanwasmeanttostayonthegroundgodwouldhavegivenusroots"
```

The plaintext should be organized into a rectangle as square as possible.
The size of the rectangle should be decided by the length of the message.

If `c` is the number of columns and `r` is the number of rows, then for the rectangle `r` x `c` find the smallest possible integer `c` such that:

- `r * c >= length of message`,
- and `c >= r`,
- and `c - r <= 1`.

Our normalized text is 54 characters long, dictating a rectangle with `c = 8` and `r = 7`:

```text
"ifmanwas"
"meanttos"
"tayonthe"
"groundgo"
"dwouldha"
"vegivenu"
"sroots  "
```

The coded message is obtained by reading down the columns going left to right.

The message above is coded as:

```text
"imtgdvsfearwermayoogoanouuiontnnlvtwttddesaohghnsseoau"
```

Output the encoded text in chunks that fill perfect rectangles `(r X c)`, with `c` chunks of `r` length, separated by spaces.
For phrases that are `n` characters short of the perfect rectangle, pad each of the last `n` chunks with a single trailing space.

```text
"imtgdvs fearwer mayoogo anouuio ntnnlvt wttddes aohghn  sseoau "
```

Notice that were we to stack these, we could visually decode the ciphertext back in to the original message:

```text
"imtgdvs"
"fearwer"
"mayoogo"
"anouuio"
"ntnnlvt"
"wttddes"
"aohghn "
"sseoau "
```

----
Use the instructions above to modify the supplied files: crypto_square.cpp, crypto_square.h
Don't change the names of existing functions or classes, as they may be referenced from other code like unit tests.
Only use standard libraries; don't install additional packages.
```
---
Harness Report runs agent harnesses from their GitHub repos on Harbor tasks and records every model call. Every page is also `.md` and `.json`; index: https://harnessreport.com/llms.txt · MCP: https://harnessreport.com/mcp