Hello world and welcome back to haxez, thank you for surfing by. This post is a walkthrough of the Hack This Site Extended Basic Mission 3. The purpose of this challenge is to deduce the function of a bespoke programming language’s application. A basic understanding of programming and assigning variables is required for this challenge. However, I’m terrible at programming and was still able to solve the challenge.
The Extended Basic 3 Function
As mentioned above, the image below informs the user that the challenge creator has created a bespoke programming language. In order to solve the challenge, we need to walk through the application step by step and determine the output.
Therefore, I believe the best method of solving this challenge is to analyse each line individually and identify what it is doing.
The Solution
BEGIN notr.ealFirstly, the application starts with ‘BEGIN notr.eal’. Granted, this appears fairly self-explanatory and denotes the start of the application.
CREATE int AS 2Secondly, it appears as though the application is creating an integer with the value of 2. However, as with other programming languages, the position of ‘CREATE’ suggests it is more likely that the integer value of 2 is being assigned to the variable ‘CREATE’.
DESTROY int AS 0Thirdly, the same can be said about the ‘DESTROY’ variable. This could easily be mistaken for a function of the program. However, since this function isn’t previously described in the program, I’m going to assume that an integer value of 0 is being added to the variable ‘DESTROY’.
ANS var AS Create + TOFourthly, it would appear that the value of the ‘create’ variable (currently 2) or ‘CREATE’ as previously written is being add to the ‘TO’ variable. I’m not too sure about this one but it resulted in the correct answer so my logic (however flawed) seems correct.
out TOFinally, the value of the ‘TO’ variable is printed out to the screen. So in this instance the answer should be 2. If you submit that to the submission box then it should solve the challenge.
BEGIN notr.eal /* Starts the program
CREATE int AS 2 /* Adds the integer 2 to variable 'CREATE'
DESTROY int AS 0 /* Adds the integer 0 to variable 'DESTROY'
ANS var AS Create + TO /* Appears to take the value of variable 'CREATE' and adds to varable 'TO'
out TO /* Prints the value of 'TO'Extended Basic Mission 3 — Conclusion
While my explanation might be incorrect, it resulted in the correct answer. Furthermore, I tried to solve the challenge in other ways but wasn’t able to. If we break the program down again and look at lines 2 and 3 we could infer that the program is simply creating an integer of 2 and then destroying it. If it destroys the integer then the value of the variable ‘TO’ would be 0 which is the wrong answer. I’ve also looked at whether ‘AS’ could be a variable but we end up with the same result of the value of the variable being destroyed and ending up with 0. There could be something else I’m missing and if you spot it then please let me know. Anyway this was a fun challenge, please check out my other posts in this series ExtBasic1 and ExtBasic2.