Read a crossword with a twist!

Question

Similar to this question, but this is a crossword variation!

Instead of only one letter per grid square, you can have one or two.

Input:

• A 2d array, or whatever works in your language.
• You can assume valid inputs
• Any array size must work

Output:

• An array of all the words
  • Across and down
  • All words must be joined together, i.e. linked in an unbroken chain of words (if not return false)
  • Words must be at least two grid squares, not letters

Example:

[["",  "wo", "r",  "k"],
[ "",   "r",  "",   ""],
[ "he", "l",  "lo", ""],
[ "",   "d",  "ad", ""]]

Returns:

["work", "world", "hello", "load", "dad"]

Example:

[["he", "ll", "o"],
[ "",   "",   ""],
[ "wo", "r",  "ld"]]

Returns:

false

This is fastest-code, so I'll be running this on windows 7 with 2.5ghz and 16gb of ram. If your code is really esoteric, provide a link to the compiler so I can actually run it.

Answer 1

Python 3

import numpy
from scipy.ndimage import measurements

def crosswords(arr):
    M=numpy.asarray(arr)
    # check connectivity
    if measurements.label(numpy.where(M!='',1,0))[-1] != 1:
        return 'false'

    words = []
    def get_words(mat):
        for r in mat:
            word,counter='',0
            for c in r:
                if c=='':
                    if counter>1:
                        words.append(word)
                    word, counter = '', 0
                else:
                    word, counter = word+c, counter+1
            if counter > 1:
                words.append(word)
    get_words(M)
    # transpose M
    get_words(M.T)
    return words

Usage:

Function takes an array of array of strings as input:

crosswords( [["", "wo", "r", "k"], [ "", "r", "", ""], [ "he", "l", "lo", ""], [ "", "d", "ad", ""]])

Returns the string false when connectivity returns multiple labels. Returns array of valid words otherwise.

I timed it with timeit, time.time() and using the console command time and but I don't know which one to use or which one to post here.