#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; my $file = $ARGV[0] || 'words.txt'; open(my $fh, '<', $file) or die "Unable to open '$file' for reading: $!"; my %freq; while (<$fh>) { tr/a-z//cd; ++$freq{$_} for split //; } while (%freq) { my ($small) = sort {$freq{$a} <=> $freq{$b}} keys %freq; seek $fh, 0, 0; my ($max, $word) = (-1, ''); while (<$fh>) { last if $max == keys %freq; next if index($_, $small) == -1; tr/a-z//cd; my %uniq = map {$_ => undef} split //; delete $uniq{$small}; my $cnt = grep defined $freq{$_}, keys %uniq; ($max, $word) = ($cnt, $_) if $cnt > $max; } print "$word\n"; delete @freq{split //, $word}; } __END__ photojournalism quarterbacked detoxifying blowzier aardvark