What can I say .... I'm blown away .... Thanks ! (I think ???)
I appreciate the feedback in it's entirety.
1. Version Checking - You are right, will put a check in for that line (but I also use ReverseStr() and Replace() a couple of times also (problems with Excel 97 I believe) I could write dedicated replacement functions for these but I can't seem to work up the enthusiasm for that !)
2a. Not only, could it not solve it, it couldn't even find a single number ! Okay that means I'm gonna have to implement pattern matching (huge code effort )
2b. The puzzles at www.kakuropuzzle.com are quite a bit different aren't they, hmm ! my board maxed out at 35x30 will have to expand to 40x40 to be able to take a crack at the impossipuzzles !!!
3. Multiple solutions : hmm ! I take your point, in a small closed area like this with only a single external reference it is possible to have 2 solutions (in each area like this). I'm not sure if it's worth coding for though as the solver will just show the possibles (will rewrite final write routine to accomodate )
4. Sorry, by "generate" I meant create new puzzles without human intervention.
5. I did like your routine CreateTough2() though, I'm a bit unclear on what
actually does.
6. Would you also care to include your routines for "BuildKakuroBoard" and "AddKakuroRow" (Thanks in advance) though to make it easier to read I would (probably) have written
AddKakuroRow 7, vX, V(24), V(17, 8), vB, vB, V(18, 15), vB, vB, vB, V(13)
as
AddKakuroRow 7, D, "24 ", "17 8", "", "", "18 15", "", "", "", "13 "
- but that's just a guess without having seen your routines.
Thanks again, if only for pointing out another resource and where my code fails