Problem 2358. Word Search Solver

goc3

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There are n words (minimum of three letters in each word) supplied with a given word search board. The answer will contain n rows where each row contains the row and column indices where the word starts followed by an integer indicating the direction of the word. The direction integer runs from 1 to 8 and starts at 12 o'clock, running clockwise. So, a word spelled to the right (normal fashion) would be indexed as a 3 and facing downward to the left (SW) would be a 6.
The first board is included here for reference:
 board = [
  'xcupa'
  'dyrng'
  'osbaq'
  'exbid'
  'wgamv'
 ];
 words = {'aim'; 'bid'; 'cup'; 'doe'};
 loc_ans = [
  3 4 5
  4 3 3
  1 2 3
  2 1 5
 ];

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68 Solutions

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Last Solution submitted on Dec 15, 2025

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2 Comments

Guillaume on 12 Jun 2014

On the 2nd board, 'ice' can be found at position [3 3 1] as tested in the suite, but also at position [2 2 3]. It'd be better to remove the ambiguity.

goc3 on 13 Jun 2014

Thanks for the catch. I just fixed it. I'll be extra cautious the next time that I use short words in a word search...

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