[ghaff]

>What makes a Wordle square yellow

One thing I had wondered--but not enough to figure out what the code does...

Let's say you enter Mamma for example. And there is one M in the word but in the second position. Which M square does Wordle choose to turn yellow? (But maybe it doesn't matter?) There may be other cases like that as well.

[jzimbel]

Here’s the algorithm of the game’s letter marking system, based on my experience reproducing its logic for a script I wrote that computes remaining words from your guesses and their corresponding marks.

Suppose the target word is “polar” and you guess “banal”.

A submitted word is marked in 3 passes.

0. Initial state: (“banal”, “polar”)

1. Zip together the letters of the guess and target words, and loop through the zipped list. When both letters at a position are the same, replace the guess letter with the symbol for “correct” (green) and remove the target letter from the target word. State: (“banGl”, “polr”)

2. Loop through the target word’s letters, replacing the first occurrence (if any) of each one in the guess word with the symbol for “present” (yellow). State: (“banGY”, “polr”)

3. Replace any remaining letters in the guess word with the symbol for “not present” (black). State: (“BBBGY”, “polr”)

Return the marked guess word.

---

Other examples:

0. (“mamma”, “amaze”)

1. (“mamma”, “amaze”)

2. (“YYmmY”, “amaze”)

3. (“YYBBY”, “amaze”)

---

0. (“nieto”, “otoño”)

1. (“nietG”, “otoñ”)

2. (“nieYG”, “otoñ”)

3. (“BBBYG”, “otoñ”)

edit: fixing formatting issues. Sorry, first time posting a comment on here.

[julianwachholz]

For yellow squares, the particular order in which they turn yellow doesn't matter.

The remaining grey Ms tell you the same thing (that those positions don't have an M).

[gweinberg]

That's true for Wordle, but I think according to the dontwordle rules you are allowed to make a guess with an em on one of the grey squares anyway.

[db_admin]

No you are not allowed to do that. A grey square excludes the letter from the position, regardless of any yellow squares.

[pricci]

You are correct. Words with repeated letters are not a good strategy in this game.

[JoshTriplett]

Words with repeated letters are a great strategy, as long as you know or strongly suspect the letter isn't in the target word, and the letter is rare so eliminating it doesn't eliminate much.

[skeaker]

They are a fantastic strategy, though if one happens to rob you of a lot of remaining words, you should undo it.

[pricci]

Hmm, that was the case when I tried and I jumped to the conclusion

[nebulous1]

I'm not sure about your conclusion here. If we don't repeat the letter then we're going to have information about another letter, which we don't want.

[hitpointdrew]

> Let's say you enter Mamma for example. And there is one M in the word but in the second position. Which M square does Wordle choose to turn yellow? (But maybe it doesn't matter?)

I don’t think it matters, it should just default to the first M.

[moron4hire]

From experience, the first M.

[drooglyman]

Yep, it's the first M.

I think in general the rule is this: - Any Ms in the correct position turn green (duh) - If there are X Ms remaining in the answer, turn the first X (non-green) Ms in the guess yellow