How can I generate all possible words with a specified set of characters?

Question

I play to HackNet game and i have to guess a word to bypass a firewall.

The key makes 6 characters long and contains the letters K,K,K,U,A,N.

What is the simplest way to generate all possible combinations either in bash or in python ? (bonus point for bash)

You need some sort of list which contains all possible words (dictionary list). — moritzg, Jan 21 '19 at 14:30
Possible duplicate of [Generating permutations using bash](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3846123/generating-permutations-using-bash) — jfowkes, Jan 21 '19 at 14:33
Install `crunch` and use `crunch 0 0 -p KKKUAN` in bash (or any other shell). — Socowi, Jan 21 '19 at 15:35

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 21 '19 at 14:40

Here is a backtracking-based solution in Python:

db = {"K" : 3, "U" : 1, "A" : 1, "N" : 1}
N = 6
def possibilities(v):
  l = []
  for k in db.keys():
    if v.count(k) < db[k]:
      l.append(k)
  return l

def generateImpl(a):
  if len(a) < N:
    lst = []
    for c in possibilities(a):
      lst += generateImpl(a+[c])
    return lst
  else:
    return [''.join(a)]

def generate():
  return generateImpl([])

Just run generate() to obtain a list of possible words.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 21 '19 at 14:44

0

You have 6 letters and need to find a combination of 6 letters. If you are not using the same character in ['K','K','K','U','A','N'] again and again, then there is only 1 permutation.

If you can use the same character again and again, you can use the following code to generate all possible combinations.

import itertools

y = itertools.combinations_with_replacement(['K','U','A','N'],6)

for i in list(y):
    print(i)

answered Jan 21 '19 at 14:44

pranavanuom

45
5

If OP needs *words*, then `print("".join(i))` should be used – Andersson Jan 21 '19 at 14:50

How can I generate all possible words with a specified set of characters?

2 Answers2