How to list the word with the highest score

Question

I'm trying to find out how to list the word with the highest score, based on this function to calculate a score, the words come from an array of words, or so. How can I tackle this?

Answer 1

Since you just need the word with highest score, there is no need to keep track of scores for all candidate words. Keeping track of the best one is enough.

string best_word;
int best_score = 0;
for (auto word &: all_the_words) {
    int cur_score = ScrabbleScore(word);
    if (cur_score > best_score) {
        best_word = word;
        best_score = cur_score;
    }
}
// Now you have best_word and best_score.

Edit: Extend to take care of all words with the same best score.

vector<string> best_words;
int best_score = 0;
for (auto word &: all_the_words) {
    int cur_score = ScrabbleScore(word);
    if (cur_score > best_score) {
        best_words.clear();
        best_words.push_back(word);
        best_score = cur_score;
    } else if (cur_score == best_score) {
        best_words.push_back(word);
    }
}
// Now you have best_words and best_score.

Answer 2

You can put your word strings in a std::vector<std::string>, and call std::sort() algorithm on that vector, specifying a custom comparison function to sort the words by their "score".

See the following sample code for details:

#include <algorithm>    // for std::sort
#include <exception>    // for std::exception
#include <iostream>     // for std::cout
#include <stdexcept>    // for std::runtime_error
#include <string>       // for std::string
#include <vector>       // for std::vector
using namespace std;

// NOTE #1: Since this function is *observing* the "word" parameter,
// pass it by const reference (const string & word).
int ScrabbleScore(const string & word) {
    int score = 0;
    static const char scoreTable[26] = { 
        1, 3, 3, 2, 1, 4, 2, 4, 1, 8, 
        5, 1, 3, 1, 1, 3, 10, 1, 1, 1, 
        1, 4, 4, 8, 4, 10 
    };

    for (auto letter : word) {
        // if alphabet word
        if (letter >= 'a' && letter <= 'z') {
            score += scoreTable[letter - 'a'];
        } else {
            // NOTE #2: Throw an exception when an invalid
            // letter is found.
            throw runtime_error("Invalid letter in word.");
        }
    }   
    return score;
}

int main() {
    // Some test words
    vector<string> words = {
        "hi", "hello", "world", "ciao",
        "integer", "sum", "sort", "words"
    };

    // Sort vector by ScrabbleScore (descending order)
    sort(words.begin(), words.end(), 
        [](const string& lhs, const string& rhs) {
            return ScrabbleScore(lhs) > ScrabbleScore(rhs);
        }
    );

    // Print result
    cout << "<word> (<score>)" << endl;
    cout << "------------------" << endl;
    for (const auto & w : words) {
        cout << w << " (" << ScrabbleScore(w) << ")" << endl;
    }
}

Output:

<word> (<score>)
------------------
world (9)
words (9)
hello (8)
integer (8)
ciao (6)
hi (5)
sum (5)
sort (4)