Take Home Challenge: ASCII Graphics Library

ASCII art is a term used to describe images that are made of text instead of pixels. It became a popular genre of art in the 70s-80s, back when computers could only handle displaying text on the screen. For example:

                   ,%%%,
                 ,%%%` %
                ,%%`( '|
               ,%%@ /\_/
     ,%.-"""--%%% "@@__
    %%/             |__`\
   .%'\     |   \   /  //
   ,%' >   .'----\ |  [/
      < <<`       ||
       `\\\       ||
         )\\      )\
 ^^^^^^^^"""^^^^^^""^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

In this take home challenge, implement a library in the language of your choice for drawing ASCII graphics.

Specifications

You'll be in charge of implementing the API for drawing rectangles (and squares). The API must be able to:

• Render canvas
  • Print the canvas and any shapes to standard output
• Add a shape to a canvas
  • shape the shape to add. For now, assume you only have to deal with rectangles
• Clear all shapes from a canvas
• Create a rectangle
  • start_x is the X coordinate of the upper-left-hand corner of the rectangle
  • start_y is the Y coordinate of the upper-left-hand corner of the rectangle
  • end_x is the X coordinate of the lower-right-hand corner of the rectangle
  • end_y is the Y coordinate of the lower-right-hand corner of the rectangle
  • fill_char is the character that should be used to draw the rectangle
• Change a rectangle's fill character
  • char the character to use in order to draw a pre-existing rectangle
• Translate (move left, right, up, or down)
  • axis which axis ('x' or 'y') should we translate the rectangle on? Translating on the X-axis will cause the rectangle to move left and right. Translating on the Y-axis will cause the rectangle to move up and down.
  • num is how much to move the rectangle. Negative numbers will cause the rectangle to shift left or down. Positive numbers will cause the rectangle to shift right or up.

For now, assume that you're always working with a 10-by-10 character canvas (that's 10 characters wide and 10 characters tall). Although it would be nice to implement an API for users to specify the dimensions of their canvas, assume that another developer will be responsible for that.

Notes

Rectangles can overlap with one another. The most recently added rectangle should appear on top of other rectangles. For example:

  0123456789
0 ++++
1 ++.....
2 ++.....
3   .....
4
5
6
7
8
9

Make sure you do not render any characters that are out of bounds.

Otherwise, feel free to make smart decisions.