49 lines
2.8 KiB
Markdown
49 lines
2.8 KiB
Markdown
# Wordle Solver
|
|
|
|
This is a toy project to implement a [Wordle](https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/) solver. This project provides no packaging but has no dependencies on libraries that aren't builtin. The main function selects a random word, then simulates the game with the solver and prints the output.
|
|
|
|
I didn't look at any other solutions before writing this, since that would ruin the fun.
|
|
|
|
## Solver
|
|
|
|
The solver is mostly brute-force. It takes every possible "guess" word from the dictionary (assumed to be in `/etc/share/dict/words`), and plays it to every possible "answer" in the dictionary, and determines the top moves. The ranking is based on a heuristic using the average number of remaining playable words, where fewer is better.
|
|
|
|
Performance is reasonably optimized but the runtime of the overall algorithm is `O(n)^3`, where `n` is the size of the dictionary. Using 16 threads I was able to compute the first guess (the slowest) in about 6 hours using a dictionary of 3,000 5-letter words. The subsequent guesses are typically subsecond, and the first guess could be trivially cached since the initial board state is always the same.
|
|
|
|
|
|
## Example
|
|
|
|
The below was run with a random dictionary of size 100.
|
|
|
|
```
|
|
$ python3 ./src/wordle.py
|
|
2022-02-04 10:31:50,370 Round: 1
|
|
2022-02-04 10:31:52,158 Best Moves: [('cakes', -50.44), ('foxes', -51.78), ('coils', -51.9), ('corns', -52.65), ('waxes', -53.63)]
|
|
2022-02-04 10:31:52,158 Num words remaining: 100
|
|
2022-02-04 10:31:52,158 Guess: cakes
|
|
2022-02-04 10:31:52,158 Board: [None, None, None, None, None]
|
|
2022-02-04 10:31:52,158 Round: 2
|
|
2022-02-04 10:31:52,173 Best Moves: [('goofy', -4.222222222222222), ('minty', -5.444444444444445), ('dingy', -5.666666666666667), ('dizzy', -5.777777777777778), ('gruff', -5.777777777777778)]
|
|
2022-02-04 10:31:52,173 Num words remaining: 9
|
|
2022-02-04 10:31:52,174 Guess: goofy
|
|
2022-02-04 10:31:52,174 Board: [None, None, None, None, 'y']
|
|
2022-02-04 10:31:52,174 Round: 3
|
|
2022-02-04 10:31:52,184 Best Moves: [('minty', -1.6666666666666667), ('dizzy', -2.0), ('butty', -2.0)]
|
|
2022-02-04 10:31:52,185 Num words remaining: 3
|
|
2022-02-04 10:31:52,185 Guess: minty
|
|
2022-02-04 10:31:52,185 Board: [None, None, None, 't', 'y']
|
|
2022-02-04 10:31:52,185 Round: 4
|
|
2022-02-04 10:31:52,194 Best Moves: [('butty', -1.0)]
|
|
2022-02-04 10:31:52,195 Num words remaining: 1
|
|
2022-02-04 10:31:52,195 Guess: butty
|
|
2022-02-04 10:31:52,195 Board: ['b', 'u', 't', 't', 'y']
|
|
Answer: butty
|
|
Iterations: 4
|
|
Guesses: cakes, goofy, minty, butty
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
## Performance Notes
|
|
|
|
I learned from this project that `deepcopy.copy` is outrageously slow, even for simple data classes. Initially, it dominated runtime when it was used to copy the board state for each evaluation. I replaced it with a hand-written copy, assigning immutable values and shallow copying dictionaries, and this allowed meeting sufficient performance for a toy.
|