Nim

Wrote ugly-ass code today, but it was surprisingly easy to debug and fast.

Solution:
Part 1: Parse data into a sequence of blocks and empty space like in example (I use -1 for empty space) and two indexes. First index goes 0 -> end, second index starts at the end. When we encounter empty space -> we use value from second index and decrement it (while skipping empty spaces). Repeat until both indexes meet at some point.

Part 2: Parse data into sequence of block objects and try to insert each data block into each empty space block before it. Somehow it all just worked without too many bugs.

Runtime (final version): 123 ms

type
  BlockKind = enum Data, Space
  Block = object
    size: int
    case kind: BlockKind
    of Data:
      index: int
    of Space:
      discard

func parseBlocks(input: string): tuple[blocks: seq[Block], id: int] =
  for i, c in input:
    let digit = c.ord - '0'.ord
    if i mod 2 == 0:
      result.blocks.add Block(kind: Data, size: digit, index: result.id)
      if i < input.high: inc result.id
    else:
      result.blocks.add Block(kind: Space, size: digit)

proc solve(input: string): AOCSolution[int, int] =
  block p1:
    var memBlocks = newSeqOfCap[int](100_000)

    var indBlock = 0
    for i, c in input:
      let digit = c.ord - '0'.ord
      if i mod 2 == 0:
        memBlocks.add (indBlock).repeat(digit)
        inc indBlock
      else:
        memBlocks.add -1.repeat(digit)

    var ind = 0
    var revInd = memBlocks.high
    while ind <= revInd:
      if memBlocks[ind] == -1:
        while memBlocks[revInd] == -1: dec revInd
        result.part1 += ind * memBlocks[revInd]
        dec revInd
      else:
        result.part1 += ind * memBlocks[ind]
      inc ind

  block p2:
    var (memBlocks, index) = parseBlocks(input)
    var revInd = memBlocks.high
    while revInd > 0:
      doAssert memBlocks[revInd].kind == Data

      var spaceInd = -1
      let blockSize = memBlocks[revInd].size
      for ind in 0..revInd:
        if memBlocks[ind].kind == Space and memBlocks[ind].size >= blockSize:
          spaceInd = ind; break

      if spaceInd != -1:
        let bSize = memBlocks[revInd].size
        let diffSize = memBlocks[spaceInd].size - bSize
        swap(memBlocks[spaceInd], memBlocks[revInd])
        if diffSize != 0:
          memBlocks[revInd].size = bSize
          memBlocks.insert(Block(kind: Space, size: diffSize), spaceInd + 1)
          inc revInd # shift index bc we added object

      dec index
      # skip space blocks and data blocks with higher index
      while (dec revInd; revInd < 0 or
             memBlocks[revInd].kind != Data or
             memBlocks[revInd].index != index): discard

    var unitIndex = 0
    for b in memBlocks:
      case b.kind
      of Data:
        for _ in 1..b.size:
          result.part2 += unitIndex * b.index
          inc unitIndex
      of Space:
        unitIndex += b.size

---

Codeberg repo