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Sep 21st, 2009

Python one-letter-off word solver help

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Hi,
I'm trying to make a program in python that solves word puzzles like this:
"nj" (the answer to that is "ok")
where each letter is off by one, for example a or c instead of b.

the program is supposed to generate a list of possible words which will be checked against a dictionary.

it's recursive, and each time it's called it's supposed to find the two possible letters for the beginning letter and call itself on the word minus what's just been solved.

python Syntax (Toggle Plain Text)
def one(s):
        print "s:"+s
        if s == '':
            return [s]
	else:
            ans = []
	    if s[1:] == '': return ans
            print "s1:"+s[1:]
            for o in one(s[1:]):
                ans.append(prevLetter(s[0])+string.join(one(s[1:]),''))
                ans.append(nextLetter(s[0])+string.join(one(s[1:]),''))
                print "o:"+o
            return ans
def one(s):
        print "s:"+s
        if s == '':
            return [s]
	else:
            ans = []
	    if s[1:] == '': return ans
            print "s1:"+s[1:]
            for o in one(s[1:]):
                ans.append(prevLetter(s[0])+string.join(one(s[1:]),''))
                ans.append(nextLetter(s[0])+string.join(one(s[1:]),''))
                print "o:"+o
            return ans

but i just can't figure out how to make it work.
can anybody help me?

by the way, the functions nextLetter and prevLetter return the next and previous letter, respectively, for example nextLetter('b') will return 'c'

Thanks,
Simon Chester

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simonches

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Sep 21st, 2009

Re: Python one-letter-off word solver help

Click to Expand / Collapse Quote originally posted by simonches ...

but i just can't figure out how to make it work.
can anybody help me?

You were very close:

python Syntax (Toggle Plain Text)
def one(s):
    if s == '':
        return [s]
    else:
        ans = []
        if s[1:] == '': return ans
        for o in one(s[1:]):
            ans.append(prevLetter(s[0])+o)
            ans.append(nextLetter(s[0])+o)
        return ans
def one(s):
    if s == '':
        return [s]
    else:
        ans = []
        if s[1:] == '': return ans
        for o in one(s[1:]):
            ans.append(prevLetter(s[0])+o)
            ans.append(nextLetter(s[0])+o)
        return ans

You never made use of o in your function. You were for whatever reason trying to use ''.join(x) (NOTE: that is equivalent to string.join(x, '') ).

Your function can be further simplified as such:

python Syntax (Toggle Plain Text)
def one4(s):
    if s == '': return [s]
    else:
        return [prevLetter(s[0]) + o for o in one(s[1:])] + \
               [nextLetter(s[0]) + o for o in one(s[1:])]
def one4(s):
    if s == '': return [s]
    else:
        return [prevLetter(s[0]) + o for o in one(s[1:])] + \
               [nextLetter(s[0]) + o for o in one(s[1:])]

Last edited by jlm699; Sep 21st, 2009 at 12:53 pm.

jlm699

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Sep 22nd, 2009

Re: Python one-letter-off word solver help

Thanks so much, it works perfectly!

simonches

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