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From: levy@ttrdc.UUCP
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles,comp.sources.wanted
Subject: looking for ideas on crossword-puzzle generator program
Message-ID: <1728@ttrdc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 28-May-87 00:33:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: ttrdc.1728
Posted: Thu May 28 00:33:14 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 30-May-87 00:38:30 EDT
Organization: AT&T, Skokie, IL
Lines: 16
Keywords: crossword, puzzle, program
Xref: utgpu rec.puzzles:233 comp.sources.wanted:1095

Has anyone out there in netland ever written, heard of, seen, or used a
crossword-puzzle generator program that you would be willing to tell me
about?  I've been thinking of playing around with creating such a program,
using random dictionary search starting points and recursion until the empty
grid (generated by hand or by another program) was successfully filled with
a set of letters which spell some kind of words in both horizontal and
vertical directions.  But it also seems to me that it would be a s-l-o-o-w
process because of all the trial-and-error even if I used techniques to make
random dictionary access and search relatively quick (like using binary search
on sorted lists of fixed-length words).  Any ideas?  Would it need a machine
on the order of a Cray to pull this off :-) ?
-- 
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