I downloaded the following program from somewhere using a link from Wikipedia
and inserted the “most difficult Sudoku puzzle ever” string into it and ran it.
It worked fine and solved the puzzle in about 4 seconds. However I cannot
understand how it works. It seems to go backwards and forwards at random. Can
anyone explain how it works in simple terms?
Eric.
def same_row(i,j): return (i/9 == j/9)
def same_col(i,j): return (i-j) % 9 == 0
def same_block(i,j): return (i/27 == j/27 and i%9/3 == j%9/3)
def r(a):
i = a.find('0')
if i == -1:
print a
exit(a)
excluded_numbers = set()
for j in range(81):
if same_row(i,j) or same_col(i,j) or same_block(i,j):
excluded_numbers.add(a[j])
for m in '123456789':
if m not in excluded_numbers:
# At this point, m is not excluded by any row, column, or block, so let's
place it and recurse
r(a[:i]+m+a[i+1:])
r('800000000003600000070090200050007000000045700000100030001000068008500010090000400')
Sudoku solver where the puzzle is an 81 character string representing the
puzzle read left-to-right, top-to-bottom, and 0 is a blank.
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