wordTransform.frink

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// Routines to transform one word into another by substituting one letter
// at a time.

transform[initWord, finalWord] :=
{
   // Initialize wordlist with words of the same length.
   wordlist = new set
   len = length[initWord]

   // The wordlist files are part of the Moby wordlist project, available at:
   //   http://icon.shef.ac.uk/Moby/
   for word = lines["file:///home/eliasen/prog/mobydict/mwords/singlewords.txt"]
      if length[word] == len
         wordlist.put[word]

   queue = [[initWord]]
   evaluateList[finalWord, wordlist, queue]
}

// Perform a breadth-first search of the list
evaluateList[finalWord, wordlist, queue] :=
{
   do
   {
      initWordList = queue.popFirst[]
//      println["Wordlist: $initWordList"]
      initWord = initWordList@(length[initWordList]-1)
      
      for word = wordlist
      {
//         println["*$initWord\t$word"]
         if difference[initWord, word] == 1
         {
//            println["$initWord\t$word"]
//            wordlist.remove[word]
            if word == finalWord
            {
               newList = initWordList.shallowCopy[]
               newList.push[finalWord]
               println[newList]
//               return newList
            } else
            {
               newList = initWordList.shallowCopy[]
               newList.push[word]
               queue.push[newList]
            }
         }
      }
   } while length[queue] > 0
}

// Return the number of different characters in the two words.
difference[initWord, finalWord] :=
{
   len = length[initWord]
   count = len

   for i = 0 to len-1
      if substrLen[initWord,i,1] == substrLen[finalWord,i,1]
         count = count - 1

   return count
}


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This is a program written in the programming language Frink.
For more information, view the Frink Documentation or see More Sample Frink Programs.

Alan Eliasen was born 19945 days, 10 hours, 31 minutes ago.