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

I'd write an interface that has functions that receive the sudoku field and returns true/false if it's a solution. Then implement the constraints as single validation classes per constraint.

To verify just iterate through all constraint classes and when all pass the sudoku is correct. To speedup put the ones that most likely fail to the front and stop in the first result that points to invalid field.

Pretty generic pattern. ;-)

You can of course enhance this to provide hints which field is presumably wrong and so on.

First constraint, just check if all fields are filled out. (Simple loop) Second check if all numbers are in each block (nested loops) Third check for complete rows and columns (almost same procedure as above but different access scheme)