wordsearchutils

A utility package to help with word search solving applications.

This module arose because I wanted to make a program to solve word searches, and needed custom classes in order to do it. I thought I would make my effort available to the general public. Enjoy!

Installation

pip install wordsearchutils

Reference

wordsearchutils.WordSearch

The word search class is an object that can be created to represent a word search.

Initialization

wordsearchutils.WordSearch(matrix, word_list, ignore_spaces = True, case_sensitive = False)

• matrix: A list of lists that represents the characters in a word search.
• word_list: A list of the words to find in the word search. The word bank.
• ignore_spaces: Boolean; whether or not to remove spaces from words when parsing.
• case_sensitive: Boolean; whether the word search and words should be case sensitive.

Example: the matrix variable of a 3x3 word search

matrix = [
  ['a','b','c'],
  ['d','e','f'],
  ['g','h','i']
]

Properties

• self.word_list: A list containing words to be searched. If ignore_spaces is True, the words in self.word_list will have spaces removed. If case_sensitive is not True, the words in self.word_list will be lower case.

• self.word_obj_list: A list containing wordsearchutils.Word objects that were found in the word search. This list is empty until the word search is parsed by using self.parse().

• self.matrix: A matrix representing the original matrix input, made of wordsearchutils.Character objects.

• self.directional_matrices: A dict object that holds all the rotations of the word search.

  • Keys: right, left, up, down, diagonal_right, diagonal_left, diagonal_up, diagonal_down
  • The right key is equivalent to self.matrix.

Methods

• self.print_chars(self, direction = 'right'): Prints one of the matrix directions, right by default, which is equivalent to self.matrix. Converting the WordSearch object into a string will return the matrix printed by direction = 'right'. Intended as a debugging tool.

• self.print_coords(self, direction = 'right'): Prints the coordinates of the characters for one of the matrix directions, right by default. Intended as a debugging tool.

• self.print_all_matrices(self): Prints all 8 directional matrices. Intended as a debugging tool.

• self.print_word_obj_list(self): Prints information on each word in the word object list. If ran before self.parse(), nothing will be printed.

• self.parse(self): Parses the word search and fills in self.word_obj_list with found words.

• self.__str__(self): Returns a matrix of string type characters.

• WordSearch.flip_horizantal(matrix): Flips matrix around the y axis.

• WordSearch.rotate_90(matrix): Returns a matrix rotated by 90 degrees.

• WordSearch.rotate_180(matrix): Returns a matrix rotated by 90 degrees.

• WordSearch.rotate_270(matrix): Returns a matrix rotated by 270 degrees.

• WordSearch.get_diagonal(matrix): Returns a diagonal matrix.

wordsearchutils.Character

Initialization

wordsearchutils.Character(char, coords, word = None)

• char: A string of length 1, representing the character that the object represents.
• coords: A two-tuple representing the row and column of the character in the original word search.
• word: A wordsearchutils.Word object that this character belongs to.

Properties

• self.char: A string of length 1. Equals char argument in initialization.

• self.coords: A two-tuple representing the row and column of the character in the original word search. Equals coords argument in initialization.

• self.words: A list of wordsearchutils.Word objects that the character is part of. Before parsing the word search this list will be empty unless initialized with word not equal to None.

Methods

• self.__str__(self): Returns self.char.

wordsearchutils.Word

Initialization

wordsearchutils.Word(word, char_list = [])

• word: A string object. Contains the word that the object represents.
• char_list: A list of wordsearchutils.Character objects that the word contains.

Properties

• self.word: A string object. Contains the word that the object represents.

• self.char_list: A list of wordsearchutils.Character objects that the word contains.

Methods

• self.add_char(self, char): Adds a character object to self.char_list, where char is a wordsearchutils.Character object.

• self.print_info(self): Prints word and char_list.

• Word.equal(word1, word2): Returns True if both Word objects have the same word and the same char_list.

• self.__str__(self): Returns self.word.

© David Bootle 2019

Protected under CC Attribution 4.0 International