Task

Write a player of the Bulls and Cows game, rather than a scorer. The player should give intermediate answers that respect the scores to previous attempts.

One method is to generate a list of all possible numbers that could be the answer, then to prune the list by keeping only those numbers that would give an equivalent score to how your last guess was scored. Your next guess can be any number from the pruned list.

Either you guess correctly or run out of numbers to guess, which indicates a problem with the scoring.



Related tasks

   Bulls and cows
   Guess the number
   Guess the number/With Feedback (Player)


package main
 
import (
    "bufio"
    "fmt"
    "os"
    "strconv"
    "strings"
)
 
func main() {
    fmt.Println(`Cows and bulls/player
You think of four digit number of unique digits in the range 1 to 9.
I guess.  You score my guess:
    A correct digit but not in the correct place is a cow.
    A correct digit in the correct place is a bull.
You give my score as two numbers separated with a space.`)
 
    // generate possible patterns, store in map
    m := make(map[string]int)
    var g func([]byte, int)
    g = func(digits []byte, fixed int) {
        if fixed == 4 {
            m[string(digits[:4])] = 0
            return
        }
        for i := fixed; i < len(digits); i++ {
            digits[fixed], digits[i] = digits[i], digits[fixed]
            g(digits, fixed+1)
            digits[fixed], digits[i] = digits[i], digits[fixed]
        }
    }
    g([]byte("123456789"), 0)
 
    // guess/score/eliminate loop
    for in := bufio.NewReader(os.Stdin);; {
        // pick a value, ie, guess
        var guess string
        for guess = range m {
            delete(m, guess)
            break
        }
 
        // get and parse score
        var c, b uint
        for ;; fmt.Println("Score guess as two numbers: cows bulls") {
            fmt.Printf("My guess: %s.  Score? (c b) ", guess)
            score, err := in.ReadString('\n')
            if err != nil {
                fmt.Println("\nSo, bye.")
                return
            }
            s2 := strings.Fields(score)
            if len(s2) == 2 {
                c2, err := strconv.ParseUint(s2[0], 10, 0)
                if err == nil && c2 <= 4 {
                    b2, err := strconv.ParseUint(s2[1], 10, 0)
                    if err == nil && c2+b2 <= 4 {
                        c = uint(c2)
                        b = uint(b2)
                        break
                    }
                }
            }
        }
 
        // check for win
        if b == 4 {
            fmt.Println("I did it. :)")
            return
        }
 
        // eliminate patterns with non-matching scores
        for pat := range m {
            var cows, bulls uint
            for ig, cg := range guess {
                switch strings.IndexRune(pat, cg) {
                case -1:
                default: // I just think cows should go first
                    cows++
                case ig:
                    bulls++
                }
            }
            if cows != c || bulls != b {
                delete(m, pat)
            }
        }
 
        // check for inconsistency
        if len(m) == 0 {
            fmt.Println("Oops, check scoring.")
            return
        }
    }
}