A cool algorithm to check a Sudoku field?

Question

Does anyone know a simple algorithm to check if a Sudoku-Configuration is valid? The simplest algorithm I came up with is (for a board of size n) in Pseudocode

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Answer 1

Here's a very concise version in Swift, that only uses an array of Ints to track the groups of 9 numbers, and only iterates over the sudoku once.

import UIKit

func check(_ sudoku:[[Int]]) -> Bool {

    var groups = Array(repeating: 0, count: 27)

    for x in 0...8 {
        for y in 0...8 {
            groups[x] += 1 << sudoku[x][y] // Column (group 0 - 8)
            groups[y + 9] += 1 << sudoku[x][y] // Row (group 9 - 17)
            groups[(x + y * 9) / 9 + 18] += 1 << sudoku[x][y] // Box (group 18 - 27)
        }
    }

    return groups.filter{ $0 != 1022 }.count == 0
}

let sudoku = [
    [7, 5, 1,  8, 4, 3,  9, 2, 6],
    [8, 9, 3,  6, 2, 5,  1, 7, 4],
    [6, 4, 2,  1, 7, 9,  5, 8, 3],
    [4, 2, 5,  3, 1, 6,  7, 9, 8],
    [1, 7, 6,  9, 8, 2,  3, 4, 5],
    [9, 3, 8,  7, 5, 4,  6, 1, 2],
    [3, 6, 4,  2, 9, 7,  8, 5, 1],
    [2, 8, 9,  5, 3, 1,  4, 6, 7],
    [5, 1, 7,  4, 6, 8,  2, 3, 9]
]

if check(sudoku) {
    print("Pass")
} else {
    print("Fail")
}