Sudoku Solver Helper Trainer Copyright (C) Moose O'Malley, ----------------------------- February 2015. +===========================================================+ | T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S | +===========================================================+ | * Introduction | * Why I wrote this program ? What can it do ? | * Using this Program | * Uninstalling this Program | * Sudoku Puzzle ".SOD" Data File Format | * The Future | * Known Issues / Known Limitations | * Frequently Asked Questions / FAQ / F.A.Q. | * Reviews / Awards / CDs | * Freeware Information | * Warranty | * Amendment History | * Contacting the Program's Author +===========================================================+ Introduction : -------------- Sudoku Solver Helper Trainer is for IBM compatible PCs, desktops, laptops, netbooks, etc running any version of Windows from Windows 95 onwards, which includes Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10, etc, 32 and 64 bit. This program is free software. Anyone - any person, any company, or any business - can use this program for free. No fees or payment is required. See "Freeware Information" below. At its core, Sudoku Solver Helper Trainer solves sudoku puzzles, and it does this exactly how I personally solve the puzzles. When I solve sudoku puzzles, I work out and write down the numbers that can go into each row, column, 3x3 box on the paper next to the puzzle, and then work out which numbers cannot go into each row, column, etc, and then solve the puzzle based on this information. I wrote this program to solve the puzzles exactly the way I do it. However, this is only the start. Sudoku Solver Helper Trainer can do *lots* more. Sudoku Solver Helper Trainer provides functionality to: * Solve Sudoku puzzles. :) * Give you hints on the next best "move" you can make to solve a puzzle (the program highlights the cell without giving you the answer). * Displays the numbers that still need to be placed in each row, column, and 3x3 box, so you don't need to write this down and keep track of this on paper. This makes solving puzzles *much* quicker and easier, because my program does this tedious work for you !! * Solve the next cell / make the next move (the program highlights and solves (fills in the answer) for the next best move). * Solve all cells / make all moves until the puzzle is solved or until the puzzle is deemed "unsolvable". * Saves and loads puzzles to/from file (a bunch of puzzles are included with the program to get you started). * Solves "unsolvable" puzzles by "Brute Force" methods. That is, the program guesses a number and then tries to solve the rest of the puzzle. If this doesn't work, then Sudoku Solver Helper Trainer will back track, guess a different number at this cell or go to another cell and try numbers and keep trying until the puzzle is solved. Sudoku Solver Helper Trainer includes a selection of more than 25 Sudoku puzzles: easy, medium, hard, and evil. Sudoku Solver Helper Trainer can help you and show you how to solve sudoku puzzles so that you become better and faster at solving them yourself. It sure helped me ! :) Developed using 32-bit Delphi. This program will **NOT** run under Windows 3.x (even with Win32 installed) !! Why I wrote this program ? What can it do ? -------------------------------------------- I wrote the first version of this program many years ago, back in 2005, way back when the Sudoku craze was sweeping the world. At this time, my friends and I were very keen Sudoku solvers, and I had a white board setup in my house on which I would solve sudoku puzzles. I wrote the program to help me solve some of the more difficult puzzles, and to help me become better at solving the puzzles. At the time, there was nothing available on the internet (that I could find) that solved sudoku puzzles. My program soon solved the puzzles and did so much more - gave hints, solved the next move, etc. Then, in October 2013, I was going through some of the programs I had written and never released onto my web page (there are dozens of these), and, after getting lots of encouragement from friends and family, I decided to dust off my Sudoku Solver program, clean up the code, bring it over to my latest code base, tidy up the user interface, and add in lots of extra functionality (Undo, Undo ALL, Stats, Save button, Copy All button, Reset button, etc), and release it onto my web page. Until 31-Oct-2013, I always planned to release the program as FREEWare. However, friends and family convinced me to release a TRIAL version of the program for FREE but charge $20 for the Full version. I decided to charge just $10. I'm under no illusions. I've been a shareware author since mid-1996, so I know human nature *very* well. I'd be surprised if anyone pays the lousy $10, but I'd sure love to be proved wrong. :) Update 18-Feb-2015: * Due to a complete lack of encouragement and support, this program is now FREEWARE. Using this Program : -------------------- To use this program, unzip the contents of the ZIP file to a directory - such as c:\sudoku\ - and run the executable file : Sudoku_Solver_Helper_Trainer.exe. The first time you run this program, the sudoku grid will be empty, so you can either: * click the "Load" button and select one of the puzzles included with this program. * Or, click on a cell and enter a number between 1 and 9, and then click another cell and enter another number, and so on. When you have the puzzle into a state in which you want to save it, click the "Save" button and enter a file name or select an existing puzzle file to overwrite. You can click cells in the grid to enter / change existing numbers, or use the "Solve Next", "Hint", "Undo" and other buttons to work through the puzzle either on your own or with help from the program. I hope you find the program easy to use and useful. Uninstalling this Program : --------------------------- At the present time, there is No Uninstall function. If you ever want to delete this program from your computer, then: 1. Exit the program, and delete it from wherever you installed it on your harddrive. Simple as that ! Sudoku Puzzle ".SOD" Data File Format -------------------------------------- Sudoku Solver Helper Trainer saves its sudoku puzzles in files with a ".SOD" file extension. The format of these files is *very* simple - just a plain text file with 9 rows of 9 digits, separated by commas, for example: 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,8,9, 7,0,0,0,0,2,3,0,0, 0,1,0,0,0,3,2,0,0, 8,0,0,0,3,6,7,0,2, 0,0,0,9,0,5,0,0,0, 9,0,1,2,8,0,0,0,3, 0,0,9,3,0,0,0,5,0, 0,0,5,6,0,0,0,0,4, 2,8,0,0,0,0,0,0,0, If you want, you can also add comments into the file by including the '$', '!', or '#' anywhere on the line, for example, you can include some comment lines that provide information about the puzzle (for example, say where it came from, etc): # # http://www.websudoku.com/ # Evil Puzzle 6,269,965,969 # 0,4,0,0,0,7,0,0,9 0,6,9,0,1,0,0,7,0 0,0,3,0,0,0,0,0,0 0,0,4,9,0,0,0,0,5 0,0,0,4,8,5,0,0,0 5,0,0,0,0,3,6,0,0 0,0,0,0,0,0,2,0,0 0,1,0,0,9,0,8,5,0 7,0,0,2,0,0,0,4,0 If you want, you can enter new puzzles straight into a plain text file using Windows Notepad or similar and save the file with a ".SOD" file extension. e.g. My_Puzzle.sod And that's all there is to it. :) The Future : ------------ In the future, many improvements could be made to this program, such as : - Improve the brute force method I am using. There are limitations with how I have implemented things, and if my program cannot solve the puzzle the program by just guessing a single number for all empty cells and then trying to solve the puzzle, then it deems the puzzle unsolvable. I've got lots of ideas for improvements here so that my program will solve even the most evil and difficult sudoku puzzles. - Automatic generation of beginner, novice, and advanced puzzles. - Support for other variations of Sudoku, such as Hexadoku (I think that is what it is called), where the play grid is 16 x 16 cells, instead of 9 x 9 cells, and each cell can have values 0-9 and A-F. Or, add support for other variations of the game. - Anything else ? If you would like any of these improvements, or would like to suggest more, please email me and let me know. Like for ALL of my software, how much more work I do on this program depends entirely on what support I get, how many people use the program. Known Issues / Known Limitations: --------------------------------- None. Frequently Asked Questions / FAQ / F.A.Q.: ------------------------------------------ None at this time. Reviews / Awards / CDs : ------------------------- None so far. Freeware Information : ----------------------- This is free software. Anyone - any person, any company, or any business - can use this program for free. No fees or payment is required. However, if you find the program useful, then please consider making a PayPal donation to support my efforts. (To make a donation, please run the program and select the "About" option under the Help menu, and then click the PayPal link on the "About" screen). Warranty : ---------- This software and the accompanying files are provided "as is" and without warranties as to performance or merchantability or any other warranties whether expressed or implied. The user assumes the entire risk of using this software. If you do find any faults with this program, email me and let me know. Amendment History : ------------------- Vers Date Description 1.0 1-Nov-2013 First Public Release. My very first TRIALware release. (2,301 lines of code / comments / blank lines in primary source file.) (64,574 lines of code / comments / blank lines in all primary, library, and include files.) 1.1f 18-Feb-2015 This program is now FREEWARE - see "Freeware Information" above. i.e. the FULL version of the program is now completely FREE. Add exception handling to the loading and saving of program settings (INI file) so that the program executes and exits cleanly (no error messages produced) even if running from a read-only device such as a optical disk (CD-ROM, etc) or there are disk errors or the disk is full and/or the INI file does not exist and/or it cannot be created. I really hoped this program would become popular and generate interest, that perhaps even the authors of Sudoku magazines and books might email me and ask to include my program on cover CDs and/or on their web sites (which I would have enthusiastically agreed to). But, not a single shred of support or encouragement since this program was released 14+ months and not a single sale. Maybe I wildly overestimated how popular Sudoku is ..... Maybe Sudoku has had its day .... Or maybe, more likely, nobody cares .... Anyway, this program is now FREEWARE. (2,382 lines of code / comments / blank lines in primary source file.) (40,843 lines of code / comments / blank lines in all primary, library, and include files.) If this program was not downloaded from my Home Page, then it is possibly an old version. The latest version of this program is available from my WEB page - see below. Moose O'Malley ____________________________________________________ Moose's Software Valley - Established July, 1996. WEB: http://moosevalley.fhost.com.au/ ____________________________________________________