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XFIND.DOC
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1995-04-29
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XFIND
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XFIND is a word-pattern matching utility that searches the 99,000+ word file
WORD.LST that is part of the WORDY package. It is primarily intended as an
aid to crossword puzzle solvers, but can be useful in other pencil-and-paper
word games. What is a 5-letter word with the first letter an N, the third
and fourth E's, and the second and fifth unknown? XFIND to the rescue.
Hand-held electronic gadgets that function as dictionaries or spell-checkers
sometimes have a feature similar to XFIND. Now you need not pay $30 or more
for these expensive toys in order to solve crossword puzzles electronically.
To use XFIND, simply type: xfind PATTERN, where PATTERN is a set of letters
with question marks in the "wildcard" positions. For example, to match all
the 5-letter words with PR as the first two letters and N as the fourth one,
type: xfind pr?n?. As another example, xfind m??li? finds all 6-letter words
with m as the first letter, l as the fourth, and i as the fifth letter. The
results are stored in the file MATCHED.WDS.
XFIND will also select out *all* words with a given number of letters from
the WORD.LST. As an example, to extract *all* 3-letter words, you'd type:
XFIND ???. To find all 7-letter words, type: XFIND ???????.
XFIND will complete a run in as little as 10 seconds or less on a fast 486
machine, and correspondingly longer on an older, slower machine.
Note that the file WORD.LST must be in the current directory for XFIND to
work. WORD.LST is part of the shareware WORDY package, which has a modest
$2.00 registration fee. Registering WORDY also registers XFIND, at no extra
cost.
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M\Cooper
3425 Chestnut Ridge Rd.
Grantsville, MD 21536-9801
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Email: thegrendel@aol.com
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