How to Cheat at Scramble

I've been on Facebook for a while, and like everyone else, I started playing scramble, a boggle like game. Well, I'm not very good, and got tired of getting beat. There must be an easier way !

In my professional life I support people using barcode scanners. Now, the scanners we use now usualy pretend to be a keyboard over usb. Older ones used serial communication and a piece of software called a 'wedge' to feed the input from the serial port to the keyboard, so I came up with the most complicated solution I could. Our desktop PC running Windoze and a serial to keyboard wedge. My Linux laptop would run a batch script and echo the results over a null modem cable to the Windows PC serial port where the text gets piped to the keyboard and plays the game.

Here's my script;

#!/bin/bash
#
# scramble2.sh
#
# This script generate 6,5,4 and 3 letter words
# from /usr/src/dict/words fro cheating at scramble
#
# Ver 2 of script, this one will try to build the list of possible
# two letter combinations that any word could start with, using an array !
#
# Usage: scramble.sh -l "letters"
#
# Created P Hurley   15 July 2008
#

#
#

usage="\nBatch script to cheat at scramble\n"
usage+="Basically, this script will extract all the 8,7,6,5,4 and 3 letter words from\n"
usage+="\t /usr/share/dict/words based on the letters provided and print them\n"
usage+="\tscramble.sh -l letters > device\n"

today=$(date +%Y%m%d)
current_path=`pwd`

while getopts "l:" opt
do
case $opt in

l ) letters=$OPTARG ;;
\? ) echo -e $usage
exit 1
esac
done
sleep 3
#echo $letters
#Output lists of words

#########################################################################
#setup com port
stty -F /dev/ttyS0 speed 2400
stty -F /dev/ttyS0 speed 2400

#########################################################################
#Declare Arrays, variables and Constants
maxcols=5
maxrows=5

#########################################################################
#Begin Loop
declare -a Arletters
declare -a Arpossibles
pipey="\|"
row=4
# Read in letters into ArLetters
lenlet=${#letters}      # number of letters submitted
for ((pos=0;pos
arletters[pos]=${letters:pos:1}       #read the letters into the arletters array
if [ ${arletters[pos]} = "q" ]; then
arletters[pos]="qu"
fi
done
row=$(echo -e "sqrt($lenlet)\nquit\n"|bc -q -i)         #find row length by sqruare root of num letters
#echo "${arletters[@]}"
#echo $lenlet
#echo $row
#######   Start main loop
n=0     # count number of possible combinations
for ((y=1; y
for ((x=1; x
for ((dx=-1; dx<2; dx++)); do             #change in columns
for ((dy=-1; dy<2; dy++)); do #change in rows
tempcol=$[ $x + $dx ]
temprow=$[ $y + $dy ]
arrayindex1=$[ $x + ( $row * ( $y - 1 ) ) - 1 ]
arrayindex2=$[ $tempcol + ( $row * ( $temprow - 1 ) ) - 1 ]
#           echo "Column "$x", Row "$y" arraynum "$arrayindex1" "$arrayindex2".Letter "${arletters[$arrayindex1]}". Square "$tempcol" by "$temprow" letter "${arletters[arrayindex2]}
if [ $tempcol -gt 0 ]; then
if [ $temprow -gt 0 ]; then
if [ $tempcol -ne $x -o $temprow -ne $y ]; then
if [ $temprow -lt $row ];then
if [ $tempcol -lt $row ];then
#                         echo "Hit: arpossibles["$n"] will be "${arletters[arrayindex1]}${arletters[arrayindex2]}
arpossibles[n]="${arletters[arrayindex1]}${arletters[arrayindex2]}"
n=$[ $n + 1 ]
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
done
done
done
done
#echo $n
#echo "${arpossibles[@]}"
############ build searchstring
searchstring="${arpossibles[0]}"
for ((l=1; l<$n; l++)); do
# echo $l" is "${arpossibles[l]}
searchstring="$searchstring$pipey${arpossibles[l]}"
done
#debug echo $searchstring
################ do the searches
#This reads out the standard dictionary, pipes it to grep to do the search
#and then pipes that through sed to replace the newlines with several new
#lines and a '1' ona line of it's own. The barcode wedge will turn the 1
#into a hard newline to try to stop it getting confused

cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep "^$$searchstring$[$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters]$" | sed 's/.$/&\n\n\n1\n/g'       # 10 letter words
cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep "^$$searchstring$[$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters]$" | sed 's/.$/&\n\n\n1\n/g' # 9 letter words
cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep "^$$searchstring$[$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters]$" | sed 's/.$/&\n\n\n1\n/g'   # 8 letter words
cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep "^$$searchstring$[$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters]$" | sed 's/.$/&\n\n\n1\n/g'      # 7 letter words
cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep "^$$searchstring$[$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters]$" | sed 's/.$/&\n\n\n1\n/g'        # 6 letter words
cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep "^$$searchstring$[$letters][$letters][$letters]$" | sed 's/.$/&\n\n\n1\n/g' # 5 letter words
cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep "^$$searchstring$[$letters][$letters]$" | sed 's/.$/&\n\n\n1\n/g'    # 4 letter words
cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep "^$$searchstring$[$letters]$" | sed 's/.$/&\n\n\n1\n/g'      # 3 letter words

#Do word counts
ten=`cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep -c "^$$searchstring$[$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters]$"`# 10 letter words
nine=`cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep -c "^$$searchstring$[$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters]$"` # 9 letter words
eight=`cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep -c "^$$searchstring$[$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters]$"`   # 8 letter words
seven=`cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep -c "^$$searchstring$[$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters]$"`     # 7 letter words
six=`cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep -c "^$$searchstring$[$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters]$"` # 6 letter words
five=`cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep -c "^$$searchstring$[$letters][$letters][$letters]$"` # 5 letter words
four=`cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep -c "^$$searchstring$[$letters][$letters]$"`    # 4 letter words
three=`cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep -c "^$$searchstring$[$letters]$"`     # 3 letter words

echo "scramble2.sh,"$letters","$ten","$nine","$eight","$seven","$six","$five","$four","$three
echo "scramble2.sh,"$letters","$ten","$nine","$eight","$seven","$six","$five","$four","$three >> scramble.txt
#debug echo "^$searchstring[$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters]$"

# comparison for older script
ten=`cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep -c "^[$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters]$"`      # 10 letter words
nine=`cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep -c "^[$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters]$"`      # 9 letter words
eight=`cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep -c "^[$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters]$"`        # 8 letter words
seven=`cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep -c "^[$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters]$"` # 7 letter words
six=`cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep -c "^[$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters]$"`      # 6 letter words
five=`cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep -c "^[$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters]$"`       # 5 letter words
four=`cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep -c "^[$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters]$"` # 4 letter words
three=`cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep -c "^[$letters][$letters][$letters]$"` # #3 letter words
echo "scramble.sh,"$letters","$ten","$nine","$eight","$seven","$six","$five","$four","$three
echo "scramble.sh,"$letters","$ten","$nine","$eight","$seven","$six","$five","$four","$three >> scramble.txt
#echo "^[$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters][$letters]$"

echo $letters >> letters.txt

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