Re: [FWP] Jotto jot-matcher

[Matthew Wickline <listbox@wickline.org>]

bernie@fantasyfarm.com wrote:
> boolean subroutine to determine whether a word matches 
> a probe/jots result; _fast_ is more important than small.


So.... if I understand correctly, you're looking for a sub
which
1) takes in a $guess, a $probe, and $jotts for that $probe
2) returns a boolean value: true if $guess is a possible
match with target in light of $probe and $jots (with no
information about the actual target word), false if not.

What I'd do:
Assume that $guess *is* the target word. Then, you can
derive how many jotts $probe *should* have received. Return
true if and only if the number of jotts derived is the same
as the actual number of $jotts for $probe.

So now the problem is reduced to finding the number of jotts
a probe should get for a given target word. I don't know
that this is the fastest way to do it, but this seems good
to me:

sub get_jotts {
    my($probe, $target) = @_;
    my %letters;
    for ( split('',$target) )
        { $letters{$_}++ };
    my $jotts = 0;
    for ( split('',$probe)  )
        {$jotts++ if $letters{$_}-- > 0};
    $jotts;
}


> 'jotto player' that uses that -very- nasty algorithm


I'd be interested in seeing that :)
If it's of any use, help yourself to jotto-related code at
    http://wickline.org/saog/index.cgi/spew_source

I tried playing someone using that very nasty algorithm
(human/human play... no FWP). The first time, I got the
target in only five guesses! I figured that this was *the*
strategy and I should use it in every jotto game henceforth.

Unfortunately, it turns out that I had just been incredibly
lucky. Every time after that, whenever I tried to use the
strategy, my lack of brute force access to a giant
dictionary really got in the way: I couldn't keep comming up
with good guesses in any reasonable amount of time. That
sort of processing just isn't the strongest suit for human
grey matter :)

-matt



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