[rochester-pm-list] Jumble solver

[Shawn Porter]

Thanks Bob!

I was thinking that the my in the foreach statement would do the trick but
I seen now that I was mistaken.  As my grandma likes to say "it's always
in the last place you look."

-- 
Shawn Porter
http://www.rit.net/sporter
sporter at rit.net

--
On Mon, 10 Jan 2000, Bob Walton wrote:

> Shawn, the problem is in your sub superfind:  You modify the global
> @words in it.  The modification mechanism is:  You iterate over @words
> with $word being  a reference to each entry of @words in turn.  When you
> modify $word, you modify @words, since $word is a reference to an
> element of @words.  One fix is shown in your code below, involving just
> assigning a temporary variable to hold $word during the modifications. 
> The word "wet" is found with that modification.
> 
> Shawn Porter wrote:
> > 
> > I'm writing a little script to solve two word Jumbles and I'm having a
> > strange problem that I can't track down.  Here is what I get when testing
> > this script:
> > 
> > --
> > % echo; ./jumble; echo; ./jumble 1
> > 
> > finding: twtowlee, 5
> > found: towel
> > 1: towel twe
> > finding: twe, 3
> > found: wet
> > 2: wet
> > towel wet
> > 
> > finding: noiiontwsep, 8
> > found: opinions
> > found: position
> > 1: position nwe
> > finding: nwe, 3
> > found: new
> > 2: new
> > position new
> > 1: opinions twe
> > finding: twe, 3
> > 
> > --
> > With the second set of letters it fails to find the word 'wet' when
> > searching for a 3 letter word with the letters 'twe' but with the first
> > set of letters it works fine.  I can't figure out the problem.  Any ideas?
> > 
> > The entire source is below... sorry for the complete lack of comments, I
> > whipped this out in like 10 minutes then racked my brain for about 20
> > trying to figure out this problem.... I'm stumped.
> > 
> > --
> > Shawn Porter
> > http://www.rit.net/sporter
> > sporter at rit.net
> > 
> > --
> > #!/usr/bin/perl
> > if($ARGV[0] == 1)
> > {
> >   $letters = "noiiontwsep";
> >   @groups = (3, 8);
> > }
> > else
> > {
> >   $letters = "twtowlee";
> >   @groups = (3, 5);
> > }
> > 
> > @groups = reverse sort(@groups);
> > 
> > open(WORDS, "/usr/dict/words");
> > while(<WORDS>)
> > {
> >   chomp;
> >   push(@words, $_);
> > }
> > close(WORDS);
> > 
> > my $hashref = superfind($letters, $groups[0]);
> > my %found = %$hashref;
> > 
> > foreach my $word (keys %found)
> > {
> >   print "1: " . $word . " " . $found{$word} . "\n";
> > 
> >   my $hashref2 = superfind($found{$word}, $groups[1]);
> >   my %found2 = %$hashref2;
> > 
> >   foreach my $secondword (keys %found2)
> >   {
> >     print "2: " . $secondword . "\n";
> >     if($found{$secondword} eq '')
> >     {
> >       print $word . " " . $secondword . "\n";
> >     }
> >   }
> > }
> > 
> > sub superfind
> > {
> >   my $letters = shift;
> >   my $length = shift;
> > 
> >   print "finding: $letters, $length\n";
> > 
> >   my %found;
> >   my @letters;
> >   until($letters eq '')
> >   {
> >     push(@letters, chop($letters));
> >   }
> > 
> >   foreach my $word (@words)
> >   {
> >     next unless(length($word) == $length);
> > 
> >     my $orig = $word;
> 	my $tword = $word;
> >     my @used;
> >     my @unused;
> >     my @possible = @letters;
> > 
> >     while (@possible)
> >     {
> >       my $l = pop(@possible);
> >       if($tword =~ /$l/)
> >       {
> >         $tword =~ s/$l//;
> >         push(@used, $l);
> >       }
> >       else
> >       {
> >         push(@unused, $l);
> >       }
> >     }
> > 
> >     if(scalar(@used) == $length)
> >     {
> >       print "found: $orig\n";
> >       my $unused;
> >       foreach(@unused)
> >       {
> >         $unused .= $_;
> >       }
> >       $found{$orig} = $unused;
> >     }
> >   }
> > 
> >   return(\%found);
> > }
>