A Java program which attempts to solve a Sudoku puzzle by making step-by-step logical deductions to make cell assignments and/or rule out other assignments. The program generates a detailed HTML file of diagnostics output to show its detailed reasoning.
The Sudoku puzzle is read from a file, see the examples folder for a couple of example files. Recognised grid layouts are:
- 9x9, using symbols 1-9 or A-I
- 16x16, using symbols A-P
- 25x25, using symbols A-Y
- 6x6, using symbols 1-6
Puzzle files can contain comment lines, starting with a '#', and whitespace within lines in the file is ignored. Use a '.' to represent unknowns in the puzzle.
To run the program against a puzzle file run a command line based on:
java -jar jar/sudoku.jar <filename>
for example:
java -jar jar/sudoku.jar examples/9x9example1.txt
This shows some basic output on standard output and writes detailed diagnostics to a file called diagnostics.html in the current directory. To place the diagnostics file in a different location, specify a second parameter on the command line:
java -jar jar/sudoku.jar <filename> <diagnosticsfilefolder>
The examples folder also contains examples of the diagnostics files produced for the example puzzle files. The diagnostics file shows the assignment/ruling-out performed during each processing step as the puzzle is solved. (Note that the program does not try any brute-force methods - if its deduction methods are not successful, it will get stuck and not completely solve the puzzle.) Screenshots from an example diagnostics file are shown below.
