GridLex

GridLex is a lightning-fast word search tool designed for grids of letters. With its powerful Depth-First Search (DFS) algorithm and Trie-based word lookup, GridLex efficiently hunts down valid words in any direction up, down, sideways, or diagonal. Perfect for word puzzle enthusiasts, game developers, or anyone working with word grids.

Details

This repository contains a word search application that searches for words in a grid of characters. The application uses a depth-first search (DFS) algorithm and a Trie data structure to efficiently find words in the grid. The words are loaded from a CSV file, and the application supports ignoring specific words, removing spaces, fixing invalid values, and setting a minimum word length for valid words.

Features

• Depth-First Search (DFS): Explore all possible directions in the grid to find words.
• Trie Data Structure: Efficient word lookup and prefix checking for valid words.
• CSV Input: Load the grid of characters and words from CSV files.
• Ignore Words: Support for specifying a set of words to ignore.
• Minimum Word Length: Option to define the minimum length of valid words.
• Invalid Data Handling: Automatically skips any missing or invalid entries in the CSV input.
• Space Removal: Removes spaces from the loaded words and ignore lists for cleaner processing.
• Command-Line Switches: Simplified options for input and program control.

Files

• gridsearch.cpp - Contains the main logic for performing the word search using DFS.
• gridsearch.h - Header file for the grid search class.
• trie.cpp - Implements the Trie data structure for word lookups.
• trie.h - Header file for the Trie class.
• main.cpp - The main entry point of the application. Handles file input, output, and program switches.
• README.md - Project overview and instructions (this file).

How It Works

1. Grid Loading: The grid is loaded from a CSV file, where each cell contains a single character. The grid is stored in a 2D vector.
2. Word Loading: The words are loaded from a separate CSV file into a Trie for fast lookup, ignoring NaN values and removing spaces.
3. DFS Algorithm: Starting from each cell in the grid, a DFS is performed in all 8 directions (up, down, left, right, and diagonals) to search for valid words in the Trie.
4. Word Filtering: Found words can be filtered by a minimum length, excluding words from an "ignore words" CSV file, and by removing spaces from the input.
5. Error Handling: Improved file error handling and NaN removal during CSV file parsing.

Usage

Command-line Arguments

The program expects the following command-line arguments:

./program <csv_grid_file> <csv_words_file> [options]

Options:

• -i <csv_ignore_words_file>: (Optional) A CSV file containing words to ignore.
• -n <min_word_length>: (Optional) The minimum length of words to consider (default: 3).
• -h: Display the help message.

Example

Run the program with the grid file grid.csv, words file words.csv, ignore words file ignore.csv, and a minimum word length of 4:

./program grid.csv words.csv -i ignore.csv -n 4

Help

To display usage instructions, run:

./program -h

Compilation

You can compile the project using g++:

g++ -o program main.cpp gridsearch.cpp trie.cpp

CSV Format

Grid File (grid.csv)

The grid CSV file should contain a rectangular grid of characters where each row is a line in the CSV:

A,B,C,D
E,F,G,H
I,J,K,L
M,N,O,P

Words File (words.csv)

The words CSV file should contain a list of valid words to search for. NaN values and spaces are automatically cleaned:

APPLE,ORANGE,BANANA,PEAR

Ignore Words File (ignore.csv)

The ignore words CSV file should contain a list of words to ignore during the search. Spaces and NaN values are removed:

A,AN,THE,IS

License

This project is open source and available under the MIT License.

Contributions

Feel free to submit pull requests or issues. Contributions are welcome!