TopCoder grafixCorrupt.selectWord solution

[brismith]

Here's my solution to grafixCorrupt.selectWord:

    public int selectWord(String[] dictionary, String candidate)
    {
        int retval = -1;
        int[] scores = new int[dictionary.length];
        int iBestScore;
        // scan through each entry in dictionary, computing its score and assinging it to its
        // corresponding place in scores.
        int iThisScore = 0;
        for (int i=0; i<dictionary.length; i++)
        {
            // compute its score.
            iThisScore = 0;
            for (int iChar=0; iChar<candidate.length(); iChar++)
            {
                if (dictionary[i].charAt(iChar) == candidate.charAt(iChar))
                {
                    iThisScore++;
                }
            }
            // add the score to scores[].  Couple the score with the index; later when I sort
            // the scores, I won't lose the corresponding indexes.  In case of a tie, I have 
            // to pick the word that occurs first.  When I sort, I'm going to pick the last 
            // word; if the last is a tie, it'll pick the last-occurring high score.  So 
            // instead of using the index per se, I'll be using its length from the beginning.  
            scores[i] = (iThisScore * 100) + (dictionary.length - i);
        }
        
        Arrays.sort(scores);       
        iBestScore = dictionary.length - (scores[scores.length-1] % 100);  // convert back to the index
        retval = (iBestScore == 0) ? -1 : iBestScore;
        return retval;
    }

Comments, critiques, suggestions, anyone?

Regards,
Brismith

[joshsacks]

If you keep a record of what the best score is so far (and the index of that score) as you loop through the dictionary, then you don't need to do the sorting stuff at the end and you don't need an array of scores.