Solutions for math challenge problems brought home from Ms. G's 3rd grade class.
Find as many words as possible that add up to $1.00, given that the letters in a word have value following the pattern 'a' = $0.01, 'b' = $0.02, ..., 'z' = $0.26.
With values assigned to the letters in this pattern, words like "excellent" and "discipline" total $1.00.
one-dollar-words.py is a command line Python3 script that can be run with various options to explore this prompt.
$ ./one-dollar-words.py -h
usage: one-dollar-words.py [-h] [--dictionary-file DICTIONARY_FILE] [--letter-score]
[--score SCORE] [--skip-plurals] [--word WORD]
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--dictionary-file DICTIONARY_FILE, -f DICTIONARY_FILE
Path to a file
--letter-score, -l whether to print individual letter scores
--score SCORE, -s SCORE
show only words matching this target score
--skip-plurals, -p whether to include plurals as valid
--word WORD, -w WORD Score a single word
Two modes exist and other options can be set to modify the behavior:
Without arguments, the script reads its input from /usr/share/dict/words, a dictionary provided under Linux. Running the script with no options is equivalent to running it with --dictionary-file /usr/share/dict/words. On other systems, provide this option, specifying the full path to a text file of words, one per line.
$ ./one-dollar-words.py
a: 1
aachen: 32
aaliyah: 57
aardvark: 76
aardvarks: 95
aaron: 49
...
zwingli: 100
zworykin: 141
zygote: 98
zygotes: 117
zyrtec: 97
zyuganov: 131
This output can be modified by providing any of the other options. For example, specifying --score 101 will only emit words whose 'scores' equal 101.
The --letter-score option causes the script to print the value of each letter, in addition to the total score for a word:
It's possible to specify one or more words on the command line, causing the script to ignore the system (or user-specified) dictionary and evaluate only command line input. Combining this option with --letter-score is useful for checking your math.
Evaluate a word provided as an argument on the command line, for example:
$ ./one-dollar-words.py -w woozle
woozle: 96
Multiple words and --letter-score:
$ ./one-dollar-words.py --letter-score -w heffalump -w woozle
h: 8
e: 5
f: 6
f: 6
a: 1
l: 12
u: 21
m: 13
p: 16
heffalump: 88
w: 23
o: 15
o: 15
z: 26
l: 12
e: 5
woozle: 96