This golf challenge is tricky, because the design is opposite from how one would usually approach Boggle. Not that this is a bad thing; it makes the challenge more interesting!

Usually, when playing Boggle, you start with a list of words, and search the grid for all the words in the list. (In real life, the word list is your vocabulary. In a program, it might be /usr/dict or some other word list.) In this golf challenge, you start with the grid, and then you get one word at a time that you try to find, and you can stop searching as soon as you find the word.

Here's my solution. I went for the bonus points using $n as the board size. It's 195 characters; surely a shorter solution is possible! 

sub test_boggle_word {
#        1         2         3         4         5
#2345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
my$t;for$y(@n=0..$n-1){$t|=t($y,$_,@_)for@n}sub t{
my($y,$x,$w,$n,@g,$t)=@_;if($y>=0&$y<$n&$x>=0&$x<$
n&chop$w eq splice@g,$y*$n+$x,1,0){for$Y(-1..1){$t
|=t($y+$Y,$x+$_,$w,$n,@g)|!$w for-1..1}}$t}$t
}

# testing code:

@bogglelist = qw/ R E W E
                  M T A S
                  K L E T
                  N V F O /;

$n = 4;

$dict = [ qw/ WATER SETTER VETO WASTE WASTES / ];

print "$_\n" for find_boggle_words();

sub find_boggle_words {
#  $storage = prepare_boggle_search( $n, @bogglelist );

  @matched = grep { test_boggle_word( $_, $n, @bogglelist ) } @$dict;
  return @matched;
}

[download]
In my testing code, WATER, VETO and WASTE can be found in the grid. The original node doesn't specify, but in the rules of Boggle a single cube cannot be used twice in the same word. So, WASTES can't be found because the S would be used twice.

In reply to Re: (Golf) The Perl Boggles by chipmunk
in thread (Golf) The Perl Boggles by Masem

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