Description
Assignment: Project 2 – Recursive Word Search
Value: 80 points
Project 2 is the second and final project assignment in CMSC 201. As in
Project 1, you will get the chance to make your own decisions about how you
want your program to handle things, what its functions should be called, and
how you want to go about designing it.
Project 2 will also be substantially longer than any of the single homework
assignments you’ve completed so far, so make sure to take the time to plan
ahead, and don’t do any “cowboy” coding!
Remember to enable Python 3 before you run your programs:
scl enable python33 bash
Instructions
For this assignment, you’ll need to follow the class coding standards, a
set of rules designed to make your code clear and readable. The class coding
standards are on Blackboard under “Course Documents” in a file titled
“CMSC 201 – Python Coding Standards.”
You should be commenting your code, and using constants in your
code (not magic numbers or strings). You should also have a function
header comment for every function that is not main()!
Re-read the coding standards!
You will lose major points if you do not following the 201 coding standards.
A very important piece of following the coding standards is writing a complete
file header comment block. Make sure that your file has a comment block
at the top (see the coding standards document for an example).
NOTE: Your filename for this project must be proj2.py
NOTE: You must use main() in your file.
CMSC 201 – Computer Science I for Majors Page 2
Details
The purpose of this assignment is to give you practice with recursion, using
two-dimensional lists, and to do some file handling where it’s necessary to
detect the end of the file or end of the list. You’ll also be getting some
experience with using datasets of a variable size. As always, you should
continue to practice detailed project design (prior to coding!) and good
implementation techniques like incremental programming.
A popular form of puzzle is known as the “word search”. Besides being good
entertainment when waiting at the airport or at the doctor’s office, this type of
puzzle is often used to help young children build vocabulary and practice
spelling.
A word search is a 2-dimensional grid or matrix of letters which contains
“hidden words”. The person working the puzzle is given a list of words that
are hidden in the matrix and is asked to locate and circle them. The fun part
is that the words may appear horizontally, vertically or diagonally in the grid.
Horizontal words may be written left-to-right or right-to-left. Vertically oriented
words may be written top-down or bottom-up. Similarly for diagonally oriented
words.
Puzzles will be any size but they will always be rectangular.
Here’s a simple word search puzzle for you. (The grid below is 12 x 12.)
G J T P B A V K U V L V
M N Q H S G M N T C E E
Y H I J S G Q E N Y C W
G S K M G H C B M U T H
R A T V M N V D G V U T
E P G U E A B P W Q R T
T J C I D D R Q T E E C
U P C I S E N G B U O B
P S J C I V N F O U N N
M P R O J E C T R R A M
O H Q T P P D S H A P G
C O W U K Q E G I J M S
CMSC 201 – Computer Science I for Majors Page 3
Here is a simple word list for the above word search puzzle:
COMPUTER
SCRAM
COURSE
LECTURE
PROGRAMMING
PROJECT
SCIENCE
STUDENT
UMBC
Some additional requirements:
1. The game board may be of any size – as long as it is rectangular.
2. The game board will consist of letters separated by spaces.
3. There can be any number of words on the list (there will always be at
least one word, however).
For your output:
4. If a word is not in the puzzle, the user should be notified.
5. If a word is in the puzzle, the starting coordinate should be shown, as
well as the direction that the word is going based on the direction listed
below. (See the sample output for some examples.)
Diagonally
(up and left)
Up Diagonally
(up and right)
Backwards
(left)
WORD
STARTS
HERE
Right
Diagonally
(down and
left)
Down Diagonally
(down and
right)
6. You must use recursion for the search function that looks for the
word in the puzzle. Failure to use recursion will result in a significantly
reduced grade.
CMSC 201 – Computer Science I for Majors Page 4
Sample Output – General Gameplay
Here is some sample output of a game being played, with the user input in
blue.
bash-4.1$ python proj2.py
Welcome to the Word Search
For this, you will import two files: 1. The puzzle board, and 2.
The word list.
What is the puzzle file would like to import?: p.txt
What is the word list file you would like to import?: w.txt
The word COMPUTER starts in 11 , 0 and goes up
The word SCRAM does not appear in the puzzle.
The word COURSE starts in 6 , 11 and goes diagonally down and
left
The word LECTURE starts in 0 , 10 and goes down
The word PROGRAMMING starts in 10 , 10 and goes diagonally up
and left
The word PROJECT starts in 9 , 1 and goes right
The word SCIENCE starts in 8 , 1 and goes diagonally up and
right
The word STUDENT starts in 3 , 1 and goes diagonally down and
right
The word UMBC starts in 3 , 9 and goes backwards left
CMSC 201 – Computer Science I for Majors Page 5
Submitting
Once your Project 2 is complete, it is time to turn it in with the submit
command.
Don’t forget to complete the header block comment for your file! Make sure
that you updated the header block’s file name and description.
You must be logged into your GL account, and you must be in the same
directory as the Project 2 file. To double check this, you can type ls.
linux1[3]% ls
proj2.py
linux1[4]% █
To submit your files, we use the submit command, where the class is
cs201, and the assignment is PROJ2. Type in (all on one line)
submit cs201 PROJ2 proj2.py
and press enter.
linux1[4]% submit cs201 PROJ2 proj2.py
Submitting proj2.py…OK
linux1[5]% █
If you don’t get a confirmation like the one above, check that you have not
made any typos or errors in the command.
You can double-check that your file was submitted by using the submitls
command. Type in submitls cs201 PROJ2 and hit enter.
And you’re done!
