'''
Created on Oct 15, 2010

@author: YOU
'''
import random

# you will need to add global state
_wordlist = []


def load_words(filename="kwords5.txt"):
    """
    Given the name of a file that contains a list of words, 
    one per line and all the same length, read the contents 
    of the file into a list of strings.
    Returns length of the words contained in the file
    """
    global _wordlist
    file = open(filename)
    _wordlist = [ word.strip() for word in file ]
    file.close()
    return len(_wordlist[0])

    
def start_game():
    """
    Set up any state that your code needs to play the game. 
    This includes initializing _possiblewords as a copy
    of all the words in _wordlist. You will also need
    to initialize other state needed when a new game starts.
    For example, you could create an empty list to represent the guesses made 
    during a game (the list would be added to by other functions in the
    module).
    Returns number of words the secret word could be.
    """
    global _wordlist
    if len(_wordlist) == 0:
        load_words()
    return 0


def get_guess():
    """
    Choose a random word from _possiblewords, remove it from
    _possiblewords so it won't be guessed again, and return it.
    Update all state needed to indicate a guess has been made.
    """
    return "bagel"

    
def process_common_last(common):
    """
    common is the number of letters in common between the secret word, known
    by the human player and the computer's last guess. 
    Using this information reduce the list _possiblewords to contain only
    words that contain the proper number of letters in common with the last guess
    Returns number of words remaining that could be secret word.
    """
    
    return 0

def guess_count():
    """
    Returns the number of guessed made by the computer since a new
    game was started
    """
    return 0

def commonCount(a,b):
    """
    Returns number of letters in common between given strings a and b,
    no matter where those letters occur within the strings
    """
    alist = list(a)
    blist = list(b)
    for c in alist:
        if c in blist:
            blist[blist.index(c)] = '*'
    return blist.count("*")