/// <summary>
/// MorphChain method creates a List of Chains that holds a Lists of string.
/// dynamically creating a new List of strings for every unique morph word and building it
/// on top of the previous List; adding it to our List of Chains to find the end chain word
/// WARNING: Takes forever to compile long chains because it searches through all the lists of chains until it finds the end word.
/// These lists are dynamically added to the List of chains and has an expontential growth rate.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="start"></param>
/// <param name="end"></param>
/// <param name="max"></param>
public List <string> MorphChain(string start, string end, int max)
{
if (!Lines.Contains(start) || !Lines.Contains(end) || start.Length != end.Length)
{
return(null);
}
Console.WriteLine("Solution Chain");
Words morphSet = new Words();
List <List <string> > totalChains = new List <List <string> >().Distinct().ToList(); //List of string arrays
List <string> setOne = new List <string>(morphSet.MorphWord(start)); //starting word {e.g told: {bold, cold, fold, gold...}
List <string> wordsFound = new List <string>();
List <string> foundMorph = new List <string>();
for (int i = 0; i < setOne.Count; i++)
{
//temp list to stores the start word and the current indexed morph word
List <string> temp = new List <string>();
temp.Add(start); //add start word
temp.Add(setOne[i]); //add that specific index word
totalChains.Add(temp); //totalChains gets e.g 0: {told, bold}, 1: {told, cold}, 2: {told, sold}...
wordsFound.Add(setOne[i]);
}
int x = 0;
//while x is less than the number of elements inside totalchains...
while (x < totalChains.Count)
{
List <string> chain = totalChains[x]; //assign chain to that specfic x index
if (chain.Count <= max) // while the number of elements in chain is less than the max length provided
{
if (chain.Contains(end))
{
foundMorph = chain;
break;
}
if (foundMorph.Contains(end)) //if the end word/word we're looking for is inside chain
{
//found the morph list; gets that chain; breaks out of loop
break;
}
List <string> nextChain = new List <string>(morphSet.MorphWord(chain.Last())); //nextChain gets the morphed word of the last word in chain
//iterate through the morph word
for (int i = 0; i < nextChain.Count; i++)
{
if (!wordsFound.Contains(nextChain[i]))
{
//temp gets every element inside chain; copies all of its contents
List <string> temp = new List <string>();
foreach (string element in chain)
{
temp.Add(element);
}
temp.Add(nextChain[i]); //temps adds the last index of next chain
if (nextChain[i].Equals(end))
{
foundMorph = temp;
break;
}
totalChains.Add(temp); //total chains adds new list temp
wordsFound.Add(nextChain[i]);
}
}
}
else if (chain.Count >= max)
{
break;
}
x++; //x will increment until it hits the max count in total chains
}
return(foundMorph);
}
