A while back I was stuck in bed for a week or two due to illness, and after I got bored with mobile games (well your reactions aren't the best on pain killers), I decided to have a go at a few sudoku puzzles.

Actually, my interest in sudoku was just a little bit mercantile. The Irish Independent newspaper runs a weekly "Super Sudoku" competition, with a prize of €150. Problem is, the sudoku variant that they use is not your normal 3x3 grid, with the numbers 1-9. Ah no, if ye are going to be giving away the money, ya have got ta make it a wee bit of a co-nun-drum. "Super Sudoku" is a 4x4 grid with the numbers 0-9 and the letters A-F. Now how anyone can solve that manually I do not know - I can't even solve the 3x3 ones! But I know Perl can…

So I resolved to write a little perl script to tackle this important scientific research project. Nothing like a few associative arrays to solve a puzzle… more tomorrow.

Sudoku, Part two