Challenge #200: Sudoku Solver

A solution to last week's challenge can be found here.

Challenge 200 represents another milestone (and badge!) on the trek up Mt. Everest: the arrival at Camp 4. To celebrate officially entering the Death Zone, we're serving up a challenge created by puzzler extraordinaire @TerryT!

Sudoku is a popular puzzle that requires you to the cells in a 9×9 grid with digits so that each row, each column, and each of the nine 3×3 boxes (shown with heavier lines) contains all the digits from 1 to 9 exactly once. Each puzzle is encoded as an 81 character string.

This challenge has three solution levels:

BEGINNER:
Using the Beginner and Intermediate Start File, parse the puzzle by separating rows nine characters at a time. The columns and boxes then line up accordingly where a ‘0’ represents an empty cell.

INTERMEDIATE:
Solve the puzzle provided in the Beginner and Intermediate Start File.

ADVANCED:
Solve the Sudoku puzzle from the Wikipedia article (Wikipedia Puzzle Start File).

mt everest camp.gif

Welcome to the Death Zone (Source: GIPHY)

challenge_200_start_file.yxmd

Parse

Join

Preparation

Advanced

Data Analysis

Intermediate

Transform

Basic

Difficult

Accepted answers

All comments

acarter881

Here's my solution for beginner, intermediate, and advanced.

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challenge_200_start_file.yxmd

martinding

Spoiler

challenge_200_mysolution.yxmd

PeteLuka

could do beginner solution only

challenge_200_solution_pl.yxmd

JamesCharnley

Spoiler

Solved the beginner and intermediate here. I think the macro is a good start towards the advanced but I'm going to come back and treat myself once I'm finished with all the challenges

Edit: Couldn't stop thinking about sudokus so went away and did the advanced. Very happy to get this one done

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Challenge 200 Zipped.yxzp

JoshuaB

Parsed, will solve later.

challenge_200_solution_jb.yxmd

JalenBraegelmann

Solved the difficult challenge with a macro for to loop through feasible solutions.

challenge_200_sudoku_difficult.yxzp

ZacharyRyanTIL

sudoooked

challenge_200_start_file.yxmd

gerda

Spoiler

Beginner bit done - will come back for the intermediate and advanced later

challenge_200_GS.yxmd

TimN

Hi,

Did beginner.

challenge_200_Tim.yxmd

ARussell34

200 is done!

AR_challenge200_sol.yxmd

FrederikE

Intermediate only

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Challenge 200.yxzp

mkorpi

My solution!

#200 Sudoku Solver - Beginner.yxmd

karlhansen

Spoiler

solution_200.yxmd

peter_gb

Really enjoyed this challenge! Was nice to break down the logic and use the join tool as a filter.

Iterative of course for the difficult part. Great fun.

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challenge_200_pgb.yxmc

challenge_200_pgb.yxmd

Heinrich_Preuß

Spoiler

very looooong multi-row formulas for the intermediate solution

challenge_200_start_file.yxmd

kristiadiuisan

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Workflow (Beginner and Intermediate):

Macro (Intermediate):
Alteryx_challenge_200_KU macro intermediate.png

challenge_200_start_file edit2.yxzp

Shifty

Keep It Simple, Stupid. 😘

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challenge_200_sr.yxmd

alacoume

Done the beginner part!

challenge_200_start_file.yxmd

Flo_P

Spoiler

Beginner only for now

challenge_200_solved_FPER.yxzp

olga_strubbe

Spoiler

A neat challenge, thank you, @TerryT! For the intermediate challenge I leveraged the solution from @TonyA. Thank you, Tony - this was a great solution, I thought, without having to go to macro path

Challenge 200_Sudoku Solver.yxmd

chandler-gjino

attaching my solution

200_Advanced_Intermediate_Parse.Preparation.DataAnalysis.Join.Transform.yxmd

mithily

Spoiler

did the beginner one myself and then the intermediate

challenge_200_start_filemili.yxmd

Dani_Lin

solved

challenge_200_DML_Solution (Beginner).yxmd

tristank

Very anti-sudoku so I did not attempt to solve it. Chess 4 lyf son!

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challenge 200 completed.yxmd

gawa

Done

challenge_200_start_file_gawa.yxzp

ed_hayter

Spoiler

Solved the intermediate - did not need the boxID in the solving logic for intermediate but did it in preperation for the difficult challenge.

For the difficult I thought my logic was going to work as on the first iteration I assigned 10 squares, 2nd iteration matched 4 more squares then I seemed to hit a wall with my logic for filling in cells hit a wall. Will need to circle back to finishing off the advanced challenge

challenge_200_start_file.yxzp

ed_hayter

Spoiler

Came back to note that I did solve the difficult sudoku puzzle - the logic was fine, previously had the wrong config set up on the macro that was stalling a solution. Brain was too cooked to wrap in an iterative macro so just kept copying the same process until the whole grid was solved.

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challenge_200_start_file.yxzp

TerrenceM

200-Basic

challenge_200.yxzp

Christina_H

This one was a great challenge! Managed all three levels by modifying my macro.

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challenge_200_CH.yxzp

jassik

Here is a solution for beginner level, soon will post intermediate

challenge_200_start_file.yxmd

RasmusFormo

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challenge_200_solution.yxmd