Sometimes you have to take a step back to see the big picture.

My solution would be to pre-process the dictionary list and make it into a "key = value" list. The key is the sorted order of the value: so "Apache" becomes: "aacehp = Apache". Splitting and sorting the words in your dictionary file is as easy as sort split '', lc $word where $word contains a word in your file.

The problem then becomes as easy as splitting and sorting your input in the same way and checking your pre-processed list for a match: if ($guess eq $try_this){...}.

If the list itself is sorted a binary search would be blindingly fast even on huge dictionaries.

Granted the pre-processing takes some time but it is a one time investment only and can of course be saved on persistent storage for a next time use.

Update: Zaxo beat me to the punch. I blame our new kitten Hobbes which badly needed some petting.

CountZero

A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a string of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little or too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity." - The Tao of Programming, 4.1 - Geoffrey James

In reply to Re: Simple regex wordlist question by CountZero
in thread Simple regex wordlist question by escherist

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.