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#+TITLE: Octans

Octans is a program to solve Algot's Wordplay (Wordsearch) puzzles.

- Website: https://andinus.nand.sh/octans
- Source: https://git.tilde.institute/andinus/octans
- GitHub: https://github.com/andinus/octans

* Demo
This was recorded with =asciinema(1)=.

[[https://asciinema.org/a/385500][https://asciinema.org/a/385500.png]]

+ Octans v0.1.0 - finds 10 solutions to a puzzle:
  https://asciinema.org/a/385598
+ Octans v0.1.0: https://asciinema.org/a/385500

+ Octans 2020-01-14: https://asciinema.org/a/384464
+ alt-link (download): https://andinus.nand.sh/static/octans

* Installation
Octans is released to CPAN, you can get it from there or install it from
source. In any case, =zef= is required to install the distribution.

** Release
1. Run =zef install octans=.

Octans should be installed, try running =octans --version= to confirm.

** From Source
You can either download the release archive generated by cgit/GitHub or
clone the project if you have =git= installed.

*** Without =git=
1. Download the release:
   - https://git.tilde.institute/andinus/octans
   - https://github.com/andinus/octans/releases
2. Extract the file.
3. Run =zef install .= in source directory.

*** With =git=
All commits will be signed by my [[https://andinus.nand.sh/static/D9AE4AEEE1F1B3598E81D9DFB67D55D482A799FD.asc][PGP Key]].

#+BEGIN_SRC sh
# Clone the project.
git clone https://git.tilde.institute/andinus/octans
cd octans

# Install octans.
zef install .
#+END_SRC

* Documentation
** Implementation
Initially it went over the list of words & checked if they exist in the
grid. This was very slow.

Currently it walks the grid & checks if the current string exist in the
dictionary. This is faster for these reasons:

- The dictionary is sorted, we perform binary range search on the
  dictionary to return the list of all words that start with specific
  string.
- Starting positions are limited.

If the dictionary wasn't sorted then this probably would've been slower
than previous implementation.

** Options
*** dict
Octans's default dictionary file is =/usr/share/dict/words=, use =--dict=
flag to change the dictionary. The words in dictionary must be seperated
by a newline (=\n=) & sorted alphabetically.

*** path
The path to be passed must be a *readable file* or an *url* in either
format:

- Link when you view it from your local instance:
  https://tilde.zone/web/statuses/105531207939242077

- Link from Algot's profile:
  https://mastodon.art/@Algot/105333136907848390

*** verbose
This will increase verbosity.

* News
** v0.1.1 - 2020-01-20
+ Read puzzle from a file.

** v0.1.0 - 2020-01-19
This version improved performance by re-implementing the algorithm to
find words in grid.