[inventitech]

I am not sure which implementation Excel uses under the hood -- Excel's flash fill feature has been there for quite some time; PROSE (which strans uses) has not, and Excel is not listed in its impact section. So this seems to hint at the fact that the engine Excel uses is different. Anyhow, the idea behind both definitely comes from the same team, and Sumit Gulwani in particular.

[ygra]

Oh wow. I've learned about Excel's Flash Fill only recently and wasn't even aware that the same thing is available as a library as well.

PowerShell's Convert-String is very rough around the edges, though. Seems more like a proof of concept that ended up slipping into a release.

[inventitech]

Yup, perhaps that's why it's missing in the latest PowerShell release ... https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/Microsoft...

[apskim]

To clarify: Excel FlashFill uses an earlier version of this engine, with a similar but less advanced algorithm. The current engine that powers strans (PROSE) can, for instance, solve the infamous "January" task without errors

[inventitech]

Thanks for the explanation. And hi, Alex (cool to meet again here on HN)!

[lysium]

I like that idea!