Style Codes (Version 2)

This page describes in detail the format used to encode a style judgement into a style code. It refers to the Version 2 of the Style Codes (supporting half points in the Technical Coefficients), in use since September 2025. For a description of the old version (supporting only integer points), see Style Codes (Version 1).

Requirements

The encoding was designed to produce a representation (alphanumeric word) of a style judgement with the following requirements:

• Completeness: the representation should contain all the information in the style judgement.
• Human readability: the representation should not entirely depend on computerized systems to be in- terpreted; important data about it must be human readable in case electronic processing means are not available.
• Clarity and conciseness: the representation is communicated verbally by the style judge to the field assistant; for this reason, it is important that the likelihood of errors in communication/data entering is minimal.

Representation

Style codes follow this format:

abXXcdeYZ

where:

• a, b, c, d, e are letters from the English alphabet without i, l and o, which can be ambiguous (a set of 23 letters). b, c, d, e are optional and might not appear.
• XX is a 1- or 2-digit number,
• Y (optional, requires c) is a 1-digit number,
• Z (optional, requires Y) is a 1-digit number or a letter between a and m (excluding i and l).

The representation is case-insensitive.

The format and the encoding algorithm is chosen with the following considerations:

• Important information is human-readable. XX is the total number of half points assigned in all categories, Y is the value of SOG and Z is the value of PEN. So a code of eh5q12 encodes 5 half points, 2 SOG and 1 penalty, for a total score of

  5.5 + 5 * 0.1 + 2 * 0.1 - 1 * 0.5 = 5.7.

• The codes always start with a letter. This ensures that they are interpreted as text (and not e.g. numbers) when entered in spreadsheet software.
• The encoding produces short codes for the more common results; longer codes are only generated for less common combination of points. For example, the common result BAS = MOV = GCC = 1 is encoded as r6.
• Letters which may be misread as numbers (i, l and o) are excluded.

The Algorithm

A style judgement consists in 7 scores between 0 and 3 (with 0.5 interval), a SOG score (between 0 and 3), and a PEN score (between 0 and 20).

SOG and PEN are encoded in the fields Y and Z respectively. If PEN is 10 or larger, then letters are used, with a=1, b=2, …, h=17, i is excluded, j=18, k=19, l is excluded, m=20. Z is omitted if PEN is zero, and Y is omitted if both SOG and PEN are zero.

The other 7 scores are encoded in the first part of the code, with format abXXcde. The numeric field XX contains the total of assigned half points in these categories, so only 6 scores need to be encoded in the letter fields, the seventh being the difference between the total and the sum of the other six. The BAS score is chosen as the one to be encoded in this way.

The fields from b to e are optional.

If SOG or PEN are different from zero (so Y cannot be omitted), and the one-letter format is being used, then c takes the value z to be used as a separator between XX and Y to prevent ambiguity.

The letter fields from a to e are computed by encoding a certain numeric value in base 23, using the following 23 letters as the digits: zyxwvutsrqpnmkjhgfedcba (z = 0, y = 1, x = 2, …), so that the field a is the least significant digit and e is the most significant digit, and omitting most significant digits if the value is 0 (z).

The numeric value is computed from the values of the technical coefficients excluding BAS, so that the value is unique for all combinations of the technical coefficients. The formula for that value produces a smaller value for more common judgements (low values of MOV, GCC and DIN, and zero COM, SAPD and DIF). In the following, // is integer division and % is the remainder of integer division.

mov_low_digit = (COM * 2) % 3
mov_high_digit = (COM * 2) // 3
din_low_digit = (DIN * 2) % 3
din_high_digit = (DIN * 2) // 3
gcc_low_digit = (GCC * 2) % 3
gcc_high_digit = (GCC * 2) // 3

value = mov_low_digit + \
    din_low_digit * 3 + \
    gcc_low_digit * 3 * 3 + \
    mov_high_digit * 3 * 3 * 3 + \
    din_high_digit * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 + \
    gcc_high_digit * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 + \
    com_int * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 + \
    sapd_int * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 7 + \
    dif_int * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 7 * 7

Reference implementations