Introduction edit

Richard Suchenwirth 2005-05-31 - The Sudoku puzzle seems to be quite popular in the UK. After reading the n-th time about it, I wanted to play with it, in my usual quest to implement things in Tcl, in order to understand them better.

A sudoku is a 9x9 matrix of digits 1..9, such that each occurs exactly once in every row, column, and 3x3 submatrix ("box"), if I understand the rules correctly. A matrix in Tcl is most easily implemented as a list of lists, whose elements can be conveniently accessed with two-index lindex and lset.

The following matrix (embellished by extra spaces and newlines, so the boxes are more evident) may be the "canonical" sudoku, as the first row and the first (top-left) box come in natural 1..9 order:

 set s {
    {1 2 3  4 5 6  7 8 9}
    {4 5 6  7 8 9  1 2 3}
    {7 8 9  1 2 3  4 5 6}

    {2 3 4  5 6 7  8 9 1}
    {5 6 7  8 9 1  2 3 4}
    {8 9 1  2 3 4  5 6 7}

    {3 4 5  6 7 8  9 1 2}
    {6 7 8  9 1 2  3 4 5}
    {9 1 2  3 4 5  6 7 8}
 }

It is also evident that the rows below the first are produced by rotation, by 3, 6, 1, 4, 7, 2, 5, 8 positions. Also, boxes are related to their left neighbor by row rotation, or to their upper neighbor by element rotation of one position.

Here's accessor functions to extract a given row, column, or box, returned as a list (boxes being indexed by

 0 3 6
 1 4 7
 2 5 8 ):

Program  edit

 proc sudoku'row {s i} {lindex $s $i}
 proc sudoku'col {s i} {
    foreach row $s {lappend res [lindex $row $i]}
    set res
 }
 proc sudoku'box {s i} {
    for {set r [expr ($i%3)*3]} {$r<($i%3)*3+3} {incr r} {
        for {set c [expr ($i/3)*3]} {$c<($i/3)*3+3} {incr c} {
            lappend res [lindex $s $r $c]
        }
    }
    set res
 }

To validate a sudoku, each row, column, and box has to be tested whether it contains the digits 1..9 exactly once:

 proc sudoku'ok1 list {expr {[lsort $list] eq {1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9}}}
 proc sudoku'ok s {
    foreach dim {row col box} {
        foreach $dim {0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8} {
            if ![sudoku'ok1 [sudoku'$dim $s [set $dim]]] {
                error "invalid sudoku $dim [set $dim]: \
                        {[sudoku'$dim $s [set $dim]]}"
            }
        }
    }
 }
#-- Testing
 sudoku'ok $s

No error is thrown, so it looks like the code above is good...

As regular as this canonical sudoku is, it is perhaps not exactly challenging for a trained user, once he discovers the regularity. Without proof, I just postulate that every combination of

• regular permutation (e.g. swap all 1's and 2's)
• swap of box-rows or box-columns (boxes staying intact)
• transposition or mirroring along x or y axes

will again produce a valid sudoku, and after several of these it might even be a challenge for puzzlers...

Program 2 edit

For example, here's a simple matrix transposition (see also Transposing a matrix):

 proc transpose matrix {
    set cmd list
    set i -1
    foreach col [lindex $matrix 0] {append cmd " $[incr i]"}
    foreach row $matrix {
        set i -1
        foreach col $row {lappend [incr i] $col}
    }
    eval $cmd
 }
 sudoku'ok [transpose $s]
#-- Trying a permutation:
 sudoku'ok [string map {1 2 2 1 3 4 4 3 5 6 6 5 7 8 8 7} $s]
#-- and a mirroring (along the y axis):
 proc lreverse list {
    if [set i [llength $list]] {
        while {[incr i -1]>=0} {lappend res [lindex $list $i]}
        set res
    }
 }
 sudoku'ok [lreverse $s]
#-- Reformatting a transformed matrix to look like a sudoku again:
  proc sudoku'format s {
    set n 0
    foreach row $s {
        append res "{[regsub -all (......?) $row {\1 }]}\n"
        if {([incr n]%3)==0} {append res \n}
    }
    string range $res 0 end-2 ;# chop off last two newlines
 }

The returned string has extra whitespace for better looks, but still parses as the same matrix.
Example:

 % sudoku'format [transpose $s]
 {1 4 7  2 5 8  3 6 9 }
 {2 5 8  3 6 9  4 7 1 }
 {3 6 9  4 7 1  5 8 2 }

 {4 7 1  5 8 2  6 9 3 }
 {5 8 2  6 9 3  7 1 4 }
 {6 9 3  7 1 4  8 2 5 }

 {7 1 4  8 2 5  9 3 6 }
 {8 2 5  9 3 6  1 4 7 }
 {9 3 6  1 4 7  2 5 8 }

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LV Richard, this game is quite popular here in the US as well!

jcw - Probably everyone knows this, but it just occurred to me that these are essentially 4-dimensional spaces. And once you treat it that way, a 4-th way of looking for solutions becomes apparent, in addition to the usual 3 rules (all-in-one-square, all-in-one-row, all-in-one-column must be unique).

For each small square, look at the digits in the same position in other squares, i.o.w:

  a b c
  c d e
  f g h

If you look at all the a's in each square, they too contain 1..9 exactly once. Same for b's, c's, etc.

DPE - This rule is not true for the majority of Sudoku grids. The following is just one example of a valid Sudoku grid that doesn't follow that rule in a number of places:

 5 1 6  8 9 3  7 4 2
 2 7 9  1 4 5  6 8 3
 8 3 4  6 2 7  9 1 5

 9 2 3  5 7 4  8 6 1
 1 4 5  2 6 8  3 9 7
 7 6 8  3 1 9  2 5 4

 4 8 7  9 3 1  5 2 6
 6 5 1  7 8 2  4 3 9
 3 9 2  4 5 6  1 7 8

jcw - Ah, thanks. Bummer :)

Lars H: Of course, nothing stops you from considering (as a special case of Sudoku) matrices which have this property. From a historical point of view, Sudokus are just latin squares [1] (gives you the all-in-one-row and all-in-one-column conditions) with some extra constraints (the all-in-one-square), so one might consider this to be "taking the next step".
In a sense it restores a bit of symmetry that was lost when introducing the squares condition (although in another sense it destroys even more symmetries), which could be considered a good thing. I'm not sure if they would be pleasurable playing, though (nonlocality can be quite annoying).

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[dd] - 2011-04-04 08:55:27

you can use chewdoku. get it from twasack.tripod.com

HJG 2015-05-05: bad link - tripod complains about missing index.html

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