The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[gsf]

you can use the command line solver executable posted at the bottom of http://www.research.att.com/~gsf/sudoku/
to canonicalize any puzzle list

Upon downloading and then running the "windows executable" (I have XP Pro) I'm left looking at a blank "Command Prompt" window ... and that's the way it stays forever. What am I missing?

its a command line solver so you must run it from a windows shell like cmd.exe
if you clicked a shortcut to sudoku.exe its sitting there waiting for puzzle input on the standard input
(I guess that exposes my background, apologies for calling cmd.exe a shell)
from the cmd.exe prompt this should produce the man page

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sudoku --man


[ronk]

sudoku -f%#.c%,%o%,%,%v top1465.dat | sort | uniq -w81 -c
............
its a command line solver so you must run it from [ronk edit: windows command prompt]
if you clicked a shortcut to sudoku.exe its sitting there waiting for puzzle input on the standard input

Thanks for the link to your sudoku.exe and the help. I should have known to not run a command-line program directly from Windows.

While viewing "sudoku --man" output and studying your suggested command line, I was unable to find the "%#.c" formatting explained anywhere. If it's really not there, you may wish to revise the man page. I'm guessing it means to use [1-9] for the given cell values and a dot/period for the solution cell values in the canonicalized output. But figuring that out without your suggested command line would be impossible I think.

these (canonicalized) minimal puzzles from the top1465 trip up my solver:

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..3....8.4....9.......621..24..............7....8...53.........6...1.9....57.....
.2...76.....1.......9.6..4...1.3..9..7...18..5.......66..8....4..2.4..5..4...32..
12....6..4....9......3....5..78......6...14...................7....92.....5....38 

My solver trips up on those same puzzles in the original form, but not in the canonical form. In the canonical form, three different puzzles (#485, #797, #1410) trip it up:

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12..56.8....7.........1...5.....7..8.6.5..2..9.....3.6.....297.6749.......2......
12..........1.93.7.....34..2.1.........81....59...4....7.....91.......56...56....
..345..........1........64........983..8...1..6...12...7.1..8......27....15.6....

So I'm wondering ... is your solver tripping up on puzzles #2, #77, and #3 in the original form ... or the canonical form?

TIA, Ron

[gsf]

Thanks for the link to your sudoku.exe and the help. I should have known to not run a command-line program directly from Windows.

given the windows centric world command-line isn't always a knee jerk reaction

While viewing "sudoku --man" output and studying your suggested command line, I was unable to find the "%#.c" formatting explained anywhere.

fixed, thanks
I'll post new binaries and source later this week

So I'm wondering ... is your solver tripping up on puzzles #2, #77, and #3 in the original form ... or the canonical form?

they are the only ones in original and canonical form, although I had to enable both #holes changed and #candidates changed as the forward check iteration check, and there was slightly different backtrack behavior, 4 nodes total in original form and 9 nodes total in canonical form