The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[ab]

An updated verion of my solver has been uploaded here:
http://uk.geocities.com/aidan_001/software.html
it now supports colour wrap and colour trap as well as the previously supported techniques: locked candidates 1 & 2, hidden and naked sets, x-wings, xy-wings, xyz-wings, swordfish and jellyfish.

[tarek]

Did anyone tell u ab that the solver has a RETRO feel to it ?

tarek

[ab]

yeah I've heard that one before, but you have to admit you like it Tarek ;)

It's a very strong solver and the module that steps through the solutions to a puzzle is very nice IMHO. I have to admit the strange file format is maybe a drawback, but when I first started working on it I wasn't thinking of distributing it, but merely printing out puzzles to solve with pen and paper. I might get round to making it read other formats, we'll see.

[tarek]

yeah I've heard that one before, but you have to admit you like it Tarek ;)

Definitely, keep up the good work..........

tarek

[ab]

Definitely, keep up the good work..........

tarek

OK I've also added multi-colours now, in the form of a colour wing!

*edit*
I realised a colour wing is a special type of finned x-wing, so I changed the code to find finned x-wings instead
*edit*

[ab]

probably the last update of these programs. They now support finned swordfish and finned jellyfish.

[tarek]

check Cludia's 2nd puzzle here....Your solver should flex some muscles now

tarek

[ab]

Thanks for the feedback Tarek. I also found 2 puzzles that the solver strugged with in the effortless extremes thread that it should have solved*, but I've fixed that now. So it picks up the fish in the puzzle you mention, but it doesn't implement ALS XZ, it just does xy wings and xyz wings, which (I think I'm right in saying) are maybe the simpler cousins of what's needed for that puzzle.

*I didn't realise that two lines of a fish could pass through a fin.

edit: I've added simple nice loops now too

[ab]

OK I really beefed up my solver. It now supports nice loops and xy-chains.

So it can cope with claudia's puzzle now. There are still plenty of puzzles that beat it, you can't have everything

[ab]

another update! aidoku now supports bi-valve y-cycles. They're essentially nice loops on multiple candidates. Before it only supported nice loops on single candidates (things like turbot fish).

I also added a nice feature to the module that steps through a puzzle. When you switch on a technique, candidates forming that technique light up in the grid, now you can press ' to toggle between those candidates and the candidates that are deleted by the technique. This really helps to see what's happening with techniques like xy-chains, colours and nice loops.

I hope you like it!