Improve ASCII visualization of a composed template

[giangiac]

Method added in <repo>/src/tqec/templates/display.py.

It is tested in notebook <repo>/notebooks/doubling_distance.ipynb.

Example of output:

     ■-------------------■                                  
  .  | .    1    .    1  | .    .    .    .    .    .    .  
■----■-------------------■----■                             
| 1  | 1    1    1    1  | .  | .    .    .    .    .    .  
|    |                   |    |                             
| .  | 1    1    1    1  | 1  | .    .    .    .    .    .  
|    |                   |    |                             
| 1  | 1    1    1    1  | .  | .    .    .    .    .    .  
|    |                   |    |                             
| .  | 1    1    1    1  | 1  | .    .    .    .    .    .  
■----■-------------------■----■                             
| 1  | 1    1    1    1  | .    .    .    .    .    .    .  
■----■                   ■----■    ■-------------------■    
  .  | 1    1    1    1  | 1  | .  | 1    .    1    .  | .  
■----■-------------------■----■----■-------------------■----■
| 1  | 1    1    1    1  | 1    1  | 1    1    1    1  | .  |
|    |                   |         |                   |    |
| .  | 1    1    1    1  | 1    1  | 1    1    1    1  | 1  |
|    |                   |         |                   |    |
| 1  | 1    1    1    1  | 1    1  | 1    1    1    1  | .  |
|    |                   |         |                   |    |
| .  | 1    1    1    1  | 1    1  | 1    1    1    1  | 1  |
■----■-------------------■---------■-------------------■----■
| 1  | 1    1    1    1  | 1    1  | 1    1    1    1  | .  
■----■                   |         |                   ■----■
  .  | 1    1    1    1  | 1    1  | 1    1    1    1  | 1  |
■----■-------------------■---------■-------------------■----■
| 1  | 1    1    1    1  | 1    1  | 1    1    1    1  | .  |
|    |                   |         |                   |    |
| .  | 1    1    1    1  | 1    1  | 1    1    1    1  | 1  |
|    |                   |         |                   |    |
| 1  | 1    1    1    1  | 1    1  | 1    1    1    1  | .  |
|    |                   |         |                   |    |
| .  | 1    1    1    1  | 1    1  | 1    1    1    1  | 1  |
■----■-------------------■----■----■-------------------■----■
  .  | 1    .    1    .  | 1  | .  | 1    .    1    .  | .  
     ■-------------------■----■    ■-------------------■    

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[nelimee]

I will review that in the afternoon, thanks for the contribution, seems nice!

[giangiac]

Revert some of the suggested changes: str object is immutable and do not support item assignment

[giangiac]

A few general comments.

The current code has not been formatted by an automatic tool. I can do that for you, or you can do it, your call. You can use black or ruff. (I want to add that to CI in the short term).

A few parameters / hard-coded values could be exposed as parameters. This is for example the case of:

• h_space that can be a parameter with a default value of 5,
• cross_mark to let users replace that with a non-unicode character if they know that their terminal / text-display-thing does not support unicode.
• The number 2 that seems to be v_space (vertical space) and that appear 3 times in the code (I think).

Also, it might be worth implementing the "bounding-box coordinate shifting" algorithm to avoid negative coordinates directly as a (private) method in the ComposedTemplate class, and re-use that method both in ComposedTemplate and in your implementation here. That would also reduce the length and complexity of the display_template_ascii function.

Seeing the operations you are performing (replacing rows/columns), it might be worth using a numpy.ndarray with dtype of numpy.str_. This would likely improve readability, performance and memory consumption.

Thanks for the quick review!

• changed the function to take some of the hardcoded values as parameters
• replaced the str delimiters
• introduced v_space, corresponding to "1 + num additional lines between the plaquette rows"

It would be great if you could apply the automatic formatting tool. Thanks!

[nelimee]

I think that using a numpy.ndarray of dtype = numpy.str_ would still be worth. I can try to hack a version with that if you do not want to test yourself, to see what it ends up looking like.

I tried briefly, and it seems to shift code complexity from string manipulation to index manipulation. I personally prefer index manipulation, but string manipulation is way more readable, so please ignore that part of my comment. Trying numpy-based implementation might not be worth.

[giangiac]

I think that using a numpy.ndarray of dtype = numpy.str_ would still be worth. I can try to hack a version with that if you do not want to test yourself, to see what it ends up looking like.

I tried briefly, and it seems to shift code complexity from string manipulation to index manipulation. I personally prefer index manipulation, but string manipulation is way more readable, so please ignore that part of my comment. Trying numpy-based implementation might not be worth.

I'd also value readability more than efficiency. We are printing to screen, a functionality that is not meaningful for ASCII with more than a few 100s lines.

[giangiac]

A few more notes and ask for changes.

Also see giangiac#2 for formatting.

Thanks! Merged.