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Thread: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

  1. #241
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    Quote Originally Posted by Merri
    You shouldn't steal my icon! It is a copyrighted work afterall! I'll sue you!

    Code will come in... what, 11 days?
    Oh, I didn't know you made the icon. In that case, I will use one that doesn't relate to sudoku in ANY way.
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    BTW, I scrapped my entire project and created a new one that I'm sure will beat everyone's entry. I'll only ask manavo11 to save everyone's puzzle solutions to disk and run my code last.
    VB Code:
    1. Private Sub cmdWinTheContest_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles cmdWinTheContest.Click
    2.  
    3.         Dim SW As New StopWatch
    4.  
    5.         Dim files() As String = System.IO.Directory.GetFiles(mskDir, "*.sol.*")
    6.         For i As Integer = 0 To files.GetUpperBound(0)
    7.             If files(i).IndexOf("merri") > -1 Then
    8.                 System.IO.File.Move(files(i), files(i).Replace("merri", "ntg"))
    9.             Else
    10.                 System.IO.File.Delete(files(i))
    11.             End If
    12.         Next
    13.  
    14.         MessageBox.Show("Time=" + (SW.Peek() / 10).ToString("N8") + " - beat THAT!", "I win", MessageBoxButtons.OK)
    15.  
    16.         SW = Nothing
    17.  
    18.     End Sub
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion



    Nice one ntg. I had been wondering if someone would try to sneak something like that into their code to try to cheat, but I doubt it.
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  4. #244
    VB6, XHTML & CSS hobbyist Merri's Avatar
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    At this point I can only say: VB.NET looks horrible! Good thing I don't need to do those complicated and long lines...

    Wonder if my solver is faster than just moving files... atleast on my computer it took much longer creating the files than solving them

  5. #245

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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    Quote Originally Posted by ntg
    BTW, I scrapped my entire project and created a new one that I'm sure will beat everyone's entry. I'll only ask manavo11 to save everyone's puzzle solutions to disk and run my code last.
    What makes you think you're so special? j/k


    Has someone helped you? Then you can Rate their helpful post.

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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    I'm not sure if this was ever clarified, but are VB.net and VB6 going to be judged together or separately?
    Last edited by eyeRmonkey; Aug 15th, 2005 at 06:19 PM.
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    Separately!


    Has someone helped you? Then you can Rate their helpful post.

  8. #248
    VB6, XHTML & CSS hobbyist Merri's Avatar
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    Hey, 10 days still to go... I could take this VB2005 and make a VB.NET2 version of my code, too. I'm sure everyone would appreciate that!

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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    /slap merri

    I could go make a javascript version of my code seeing as how that is the only other language that I know (unless you count the 1 line of C++ code I can write). I'm sure I would win in that catagory.
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    Someone say something. I check this thread 20 times a day it seems. I'm getting sick of seeing my reply as the last one.

    How is the code going? Someone want to post times (not that it matters all that much). How about you just post your entire project, then I can combine all you good ideas with my project. Sounds good, right?
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    is this the first and only sudoku programming contest or are others known ?
    I found with google, that University of Hongkong is doing something...

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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    I'd hardly come to the idea to split a file with 7611 lines into
    7611 files... no wonder it's getting slow.

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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    Yup, 7611 files. It is insane, but I'd have to recode my program to be able to test a single batch file. And I guess the same applies to others. Things that are on the "features to be added" list.

    My program has a slowdown in showing results, because it uses a listbox to sort the results. Not so fast thing to do. I guess that's what I fix next.

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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    BTW, merri, which tab control is that you are using on your program?
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    Custom user control.

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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    Did you make it?

    Wanna hook me up?
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    VB6, XHTML & CSS hobbyist Merri's Avatar
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    You'll find it at PSC Not made by me.

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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    Well could you at least give me some search terms?
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  19. #259
    VB6, XHTML & CSS hobbyist Merri's Avatar
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    Here it could be tabstrip merri. Sheesh! You ought to know I share EVERYTHING here!

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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    Why would it be tabstrip merri if you didn't make it? Whatever... I'll go search.
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    VB6, XHTML & CSS hobbyist Merri's Avatar
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    Yeah, but I said to search here

    (making your life hard today, but probably only because I'm not having easy time myself; or then I'm just evil)

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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    I'd say your just evil.

    I found a crap load of other cool stuff on PSC though. I have never had the time to browse for random stuff. Now I am gonna have 20 add-ins that I never use and 1000 more user controls that I never use. But who cares! They're cool!
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    Atleast my avatar doesn't look like evil? But you have to say: my future homepage design is evil. I say, Evil.

    Off the topic. Back to topic! You're really trying to make an exact copy of my solver, aren't you?

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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    No, I was -- Ok well maybe.

    Not really. I kinda just wanted a better tabstrip control for future use. But like I said, I can't get all your good ideas out of my head. I'll try not to copy it too bad.



    PS - That site looks nice, but I can't read it. Is it about small fluffy creatures? Or is it a blog?
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    Just a homepage in general, no blog atm. Adding some other stuff there. I'll make some English content as well, I guess. Though you're right: small fluffy creature describes me well. I just miss the fluffy part. Except from my legs, but that's not really the point here.

    PSC controls are nice, but most of them are pretty badly done. Atleast almost each time I look into source I cry in pain.

    Good thing I don't have the time to code all my ideas, otherwise you'd have plenty to copy!

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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion



    I think I will spend some timing looking around PSC for a grid control to do a project that I gave up on because I didn't feel like messing around with a flexgrid. I know, I know... I'm lazy.

    You must be running out of out optimizations Merri, you havn't posted any times lately. Or maybe you are just "lurking". But we all know by now that you can't hold it in when you cut your times in half AGAIN.
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    Nah, there isn't much to optimize. I did try a few things, but they just lenghtened the processing time for most sudokus. There is a limit for everything blah blah blah. And I'm not that interested to start benchmarking single parts of code trying to see which things work the fastest and in which order the code should be

    Though really, I've had some bad days now. Was depressed a few years ago and it is easy to get into that mood every once in a while...

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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    Yeah, I have been curious what order I should put my logic rules in too.

    Sorry to hear about the depression. Were always here for you though buddy.

    Winning the sudoku contest should boost your mood a little though.
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    VB6, XHTML & CSS hobbyist Merri's Avatar
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    Like if I had a proper job :/ Nope, I have never got a real salary to my hands.

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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion


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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    Don't make me read it mommy! I DON' WANNA!

    J/K. I remember wiki mentioned constraint programming, I guess I should read and maybe I will shave some time of my results.
    Last edited by eyeRmonkey; Aug 17th, 2005 at 06:33 PM.
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    I added a new logic, Nishio to my program. No much gain: results went down by ~0.2 ms by avarage for a harder puzzle.

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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    I don't know, whether this could be useful for your
    sudoku-specific,optimized versions - but here is,
    what the author of that paper just wrote:

    >Dear Guenter,
    >I'd be happy for you to redistribute the discussion.
    >
    >From a constraint programming point of view, I think
    >the fastest solver would be based on a bounds
    >consistent alldifferent and a depth-first search
    >routine which selects the most constrained variable
    >first. If the inverse constraint is coded effectively,
    >then a channeling model (with another set of variables
    >for the values in each alldifferent) could be even
    >better. My hyper arc-consistent inverse constraint is
    >too simple to make this competitive.
    >My initial interest in the problem was not to solve
    >the puzzles quickly, but to see how much can be done
    >without resorting to search. There clearly is room for
    >further improvements in the constraint reasoning
    >concerning the interaction of the row/column and block
    >constraints.
    >
    >Best regards
    >
    >Helmut

  34. #274
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    Could that be written in Finnish... er, I mean, English? I have to admit, my problem is that I don't understand theoretical text very well. I understand the code much better than the text. In the other hand, reading code and understanding it from there is slow.

    All the words that make no sense to me:
    - constraint (dictionary translates this as "forced", which doesn't really help)
    - alldifferent (understand the words as separate words, but can't figure out the meaning)
    - depth-first (again, familiar words used in a completely bizarre way)
    - inverse contraint (because I don't understand constraint)
    - channeling model (familiar words...)
    - hyper arc-consistent inverse contraint (familiar words...)

    What I'm trying to say here... all this stuff could be explained in a way it can be understood by someone who doesn't know all the nice terms. It requires more words and probably even sentences, but it really would help if the language was understandable. Using these words limits the amount of people who can get into it. I place a bet most programmers here aren't able to follow the text smoothly.

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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    I couldn't understand it either Merri. I had the same problem with all the words you listed.

    On a side note I FINALLY got my backtracker working and I am VERY VERY happy about it.

    Now I can finally get around to doing all those optimizations I have been waiting on. I can also design a nice GUI for my program (my proggie still doesn't allow benchmarking and I need to add that so I can test out the speeds of things).
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  36. #276
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    My solver now meets the contest requirements (finally). I have too much unrequired extra stuff, but I guess that isn't against the rules

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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    >Could that be written in Finnish... er, I mean, English?
    >I have to admit, my problem is that I don't understand
    >theoretical text very well. I understand the code much
    >better than the text. In the other hand, reading code
    >and understanding it from there is slow.
    >
    >All the words that make no sense to me:
    >- constraint (dictionary translates this as "forced",
    > which doesn't really help)

    324 constraints in sudoku: exactly one symbol per cell, exacly one cell
    per row and symbol,exactly one cell per symbol and column,
    exactly one cell per block and symbol.
    You'd probably call them "naked or hidden singles" - like if
    these were easier to understand ;-)

    >- alldifferent (understand the words as separate words, but can't
    > figure out the meaning)

    presumably because _all_ symbols in a row,column,block are _different_
    Apparantly there are similar problems with other sorts
    of constraints. So, if we are only interested in sudoku,
    we can ignore that "alldifferent".
    http://citeseer.ifi.unizh.ch/cache/p...ldifferent.pdf

    >- depth-first (again, familiar words used in a completely bizarre way)

    never heard about "depth-first-search" ?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_first_search

    >- inverse contraint (because I don't understand constraint)
    >- channeling model (familiar words...)
    >- hyper arc-consistent inverse contraint (familiar words...)

    I don't know about these either. But presumably you could put
    these as keywords into a search-engine and find something.
    He is preparing another paper for a conference in Oct. in Spain
    with timings etc.
    Seems that the only really efficient method he tested was "shaving".

    >What I'm trying to say here... all this stuff could be explained
    >in a way it can be understood by someone who doesn't know all the
    >nice terms. It requires more words and probably even sentences,
    >but it really would help if the language was understandable.

    this was probably done elsewhere. Usually a survey or an introductory
    text is given in the references. This could be his first reference:
    Apt,K.: Principles of constraint programming...
    I don't know whether it's suitable for those who never heard about it.
    I will ask him for a reference to an introduction into the
    matter for beginners.

    >Using these words limits the amount of people who can get into it.

    yes. It's addressed to these experts from the workshop etc.

    >I place a bet most programmers here aren't able to follow
    >the text smoothly.

    you still get an idea, that/how your work here relates to
    real problems where much research is spent.
    It's just a special case of constraint programming !
    These constraint-programming programs can be used to
    solve sudoku.
    Whether they are faster than your sudoku-specific optimized
    programs - that's another question.



    BTW. the forum-page is awfully slow loading !

    Guenter.
    Last edited by dukuso; Aug 19th, 2005 at 12:40 AM.

  38. #278
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    ummm.. i have made a generator.. i have also made a SUDOKU checker.. the thing is.. i can't even start writing for a solver..

  39. #279
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    how can you generate them wothout solving ?

  40. #280
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    Re: Contest 6 - Sudoku solver - Discussion

    i mean i generate sample puzzles.. like those posted.

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