Reddit Daily Programmer - Challenge #158 [Intermediate] Part 1 - The ASCII Architect

challenge158i.java

import java.util.Arrays;

public class Test {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
      final String TEMPLATE = "++--***...";
      final String SPACES = "          ";
      final String INPUT = args[0];
      final String[] LETTERS = new String[]{null, "a", "b", "c", "d", "e", "f", "g", "h", "i", "j"};
  
      String output = "";
  
      String[] chars = INPUT.split("");
      for (String c : chars) {
          if(!c.isEmpty())
              if(c.matches("^[0-9]$")){
                  output += SPACES.substring(0, Integer.parseInt(c));
              } else {
                  output += TEMPLATE.substring(0, Arrays.asList(LETTERS).indexOf(c)) + "\n";
              }
      }
  
      System.out.println(Test.transpose(output));
  }
  
  public static String transpose(String input){
      String[] lines = input.split("\n");
      String result = "";
      for(int i = 20; i >= 0; i--){
          for(String line : lines){
              if(line.length() >= i + 1){
                  result += line.charAt(i);
              } else {
                  result += " ";
              }
          }
          result += "\n";
      }
      return result;
  }

}