starterFxns.py

# prettyPrint() prints the board with row and column labels,
#               and spaces the board out so that it looks nice
# Input:        board;   the square 2d game board (of integers) to print
# Output:       None;    prints the board in a pretty way
def prettyPrint(board):
    # print column headings and top border
    print("\n    1 2 3 | 4 5 6 | 7 8 9 ") 
    print("  +-------+-------+-------+")

    for i in range(len(board)): 
        # convert "0" cells to underscores  (DEEP COPY!!!)
        boardRow = list(board[i]) 
        for j in range(len(boardRow)):
            if boardRow[j] == 0:
                boardRow[j] = "_"

        # fill in the row with the numbers from the board
        print( "{} | {} {} {} | {} {} {} | {} {} {} |".format(i + 1, 
                boardRow[0], boardRow[1], boardRow[2], 
                boardRow[3], boardRow[4], boardRow[5], 
                boardRow[6], boardRow[7], boardRow[8]) )

        # the middle and last borders of the board
        if (i + 1) % 3 == 0:
            print("  +-------+-------+-------+")


# savePuzzle() writes the contents a sudoku puzzle out
#              to a file in comma separated format
# Input:       board;    the square 2d puzzle (of integers) to write to a file
#              fileName; the name of the file to use for writing to 
def savePuzzle(board, fileName):
    ofp = open(fileName, "w")
    for i in range(len(board)):
        rowStr = ""
        for j in range(len(board[i])):
            rowStr += str(board[i][j]) + ","
        # don't write the last comma to the file
        ofp.write(rowStr[ : len(rowStr)-1] + "\n")
    ofp.close()