...for a list of that size, you could probably read the words into a hash at startup time and then the hash access would take care of the lookup for you without the need to supply significant program logic on your part.

The reason I say this is that I just looked at the size of /usr/dict/words on a Solaris system and it's about 25000 words in length. It weighs in at around 200000 bytes. This says to me that your hash would be a reasonable size.

I ran a little test that went like this from the command-line: 

$ perl -de 0
DB<1> open F, "/usr/dict/words"
DB<2> @f = <F>
- there was a momentary delay -
DB<3> print @f + 0
- debugger printed: 25143 -

[download]

I'll see if I can scrap together a little script that does the lookup. Back in a bit.

...All the world looks like -well- all the world, when your hammer is Perl.
---v

In reply to Re: Fast wordlist lookup for game by agentv
in thread Fast wordlist lookup for game by jerrygarciuh

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.