Re^2: Words in Words

Your approach does n^2 comparisons with n=(number of words in list). I took a different aproach of sorting the list then comparing each word only with the following words in the array. This cuts the comparisons by half when n gets large as in this case. I'm curious how grep with the regex will stand up against your approach.

As for the extra overhead for sorting the word list my guess is the extra sorts at the beginning pay off as n gets large. What do you think? I have been wanting to try out benchmarking for some time after seeing you use it so much. This could be a good opportunity.

use warnings;
use strict;

open LOG, ">", 'wordsinwords_LOG.txt' or die $!;

#Sort alphabetically first so identical words end up together.
chomp (my @words = sort { length($a) <=> length($b) } sort <DATA>);

@words = map {lc} @words;

for (my $i=0; $i<$#words; $i++) {
    my $word = $words[$i];
    next if $word eq $words[$i+1];
    my @matched = grep {/$word/ and $_ ne "${word}s" and $_ ne "${word
+}'s" } @words[$i+1..$#words];
    print LOG "$word => @matched\n" if @matched;
}

__DATA__
at
Ate
crate
tree
Trip
tread
read
ad
at
ads
crate's
[download]

Log file contains:

ad => read tread
at => ate crate crate's
ate => crate crate's
read => tread
[download]

This is interesting. http://wordlist.sourceforge.net/ SCOWL (Spell Checker Oriented Word Lists) has 652,000 words plus a range of smaller lists.

Comment on Re^2: Words in Words Select or Download Code

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Re^3: Words in Words by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Sep 30, 2011 at 21:53 UTC
Sorry, but only comparing words with those that come after it alphabetically doesn't work. For example, the work 'call' appears in all these words that precede it alphabetically: abiogenically abiotically academically acerbically achromatically acoustically acrobatically acronymically acrostically actinically adiabatically adrenergically aerobically aerodynamically aeronautically aesthetically agonistically agronomically alchemically alcoholically algebraically algorithmically allegorically allopatrically allosterically allotypically alogically alphabetically altruistically amitotically anacoluthically anaerobically anagogically analogically analytically anaphorically anarchically anatomically anchoritically anecdotically anemically anesthetically angelically animatronically anisotropically anodically antibiotically antically antidromically antigenically antiseptically antithetically aoristically apathetically aperiodically aphetically aphoristically apically apocalyptically apodictically apolitically apologetically apomictically apoplectically aposematically apotropaically aquatically archaically arctically arithmetically aromatically arthritically artistically ascetically aseptically asthmatically astrologically astronautically astronomically astrophysically asymmetrically asymptotically asyndetically atavistically atheistically athletically atmospherically atomically atomistically atypically authentically autistically autocratically autographically automatically autonomically autotrophically axenically axiologically axiomatically ballistically barbarically barometrically basically bathetically bathymetrically beatifically biblically biochemically biogenetically biographically biologically biomechanically birdcall birdcalls bolometrically bombastically botanically buccally bucolically caecally call [download] And the word 'the' appears in 1300 words that precede it in my 178,000 word dictionary. Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error. "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority". In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^4: Words in Words by Lotus1 (Vicar) on Sep 30, 2011 at 22:43 UTC
Sorry, but only comparing words with those that come after it alphabetically doesn't work. True, but in the solution I posted I sort by length after the alphabetical sort. The alphabetical sort is probably overkill but needed for this particular solution. `chomp (my @words = sort { length($a) <=> length($b) } sort <DATA>);` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^5: Words in Words by sarchasm (Acolyte) on Sep 30, 2011 at 23:18 UTC
It looks like both solutions will work! One thing I just realized from your post about sorting is that you only need to look at words that are longer than the current word (which you are sortof doing). This means that as the program runs, it actually becomes faster at finding the results. I ran each program for 1 minute and BrowserUk's code produced 320 records. Lotus1's code produced 150. Even though your code appears to run slower I imagine performance will improve the longer the process runs because it will have fewer records to look through each time. I will let the programs run over the weekend to see what I get. Thank you all for your help. I learned a lot from your examples and suggestions!	[reply]
Re^6: Words in Words (Updated) by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Oct 01, 2011 at 10:54 UTC
Re^7: Words in Words by choroba (Cardinal) on Oct 01, 2011 at 13:43 UTC
Some notes below your chosen depth have not been shown here
Re^6: Words in Words by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Oct 01, 2011 at 00:40 UTC
Re^4: Words in Words by sarchasm (Acolyte) on Sep 30, 2011 at 22:03 UTC
This process only needs to identify 1 word in the list that meets the criteria resulting in a unique list of the words that were contained within other words. I suppose there would still be a problem if this process doesn't look at the words that preceed each word because something could be missed. I have this code working and it sure is fast at producing a list of words. It just needs to return 1 word instead of all of the words that match and ensure that it searches the entire list. Thank you!	[reply]
Re^5: Words in Words by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Sep 30, 2011 at 22:17 UTC
This process only needs to identify 1 word in the list that meets the criteria resulting in a unique list of the words that were contained within other words. Then add a single line to my solution above and it should reduce the time taken by roughly a factor of 10. Ie. A projected 1 hour: `#! perl -slw use strict; my @words = do{ local @ARGV = 'words.txt'; <> }; chomp @words; my $all = join ' ', @words; my $start = time; my $n = 0; for my $i ( @words ) { for my $j ( $all =~ m[ ([^ ]$i[^ ]) ]g ) { next if $j eq $i or $j eq "${i}s" or $j eq "${i}'s"; print "$j contains $i"; last; ## Added } } printf STDERR "Took %d seconds for %d words\n", time() - $start, scalar @words;` [download] Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error. "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority". In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: Words in Words by sarchasm (Acolyte) on Sep 30, 2011 at 21:49 UTC
SCOWL is the wordlist that I am using!. I just combined the 256 files and pulled a distinct list of words I am starting to look at trying the code you provided but need to figure out where you are defining what is loaded into <DATA> I will let you know what I find Thank you.	[reply]