The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[cfrye]

Hello all,

I'm researching a general-interest article on Sudoku puzzles and am wondering whether there exists any computer programs that will attempt to generate a 9x9 puzzle if the user supplies some givens that must appear as stated in the solution.

Do any of you know of such a generating program?

Thanks!

[tso]

This webpage will generate relatively easy puzzles. You can choose the cells that will have givens, but NOT specify the givens. It will attempt to create a puzzle using givens ONLY in the cells selected. It will not always succeed, even when the mask of givens is known to be one that will hold a good puzzle.

This webpage will also allow you to pick the cells for givens in a different way. It will allow you to specify what these givens are, though you cannot simple select a cell and type in a '4'. Each time you click a cell, a random value selected from those that can still be placed in that cell is shown. Just keep clicking until you get what you want. It will then generate a puzzle using these givens, adding as many additional givens so that the puzzle has a unique solution.

[cfrye]

Thank you, Tso. The second page link gives me just what I was looking for.

Curt

[cfrye]

I wanted to let everyone know that Jaap Scherphuis's generator, found at the second link in Tso's original response, does let you pick values in a non-random way. Holding down the Shift key as you click a cell causes the program to cycle through the available values in numerical order.

Curt