51. N-Queens/52. N-Queens II

八皇后问题参考这张图片：

51

The n-queens puzzle is the problem of placing n queens on an n×n chessboard such that no two queens attack each other.

Given an integer n, return all distinct solutions to the n-queens puzzle.

Each solution contains a distinct board configuration of the n-queens' placement, where 'Q' and '.' both indicate a queen and an empty space respectively.

For example,
There exist two distinct solutions to the 4-queens puzzle:

[
 [".Q..",  // Solution 1
  "...Q",
  "Q...",
  "..Q."],

 ["..Q.",  // Solution 2
  "Q...",
  "...Q",
  ".Q.."]
]
Subscribe to see which companies asked this question.

解法：

class Solution {
public:
    vector<vector<string>> solveNQueens(int n) {
        vector<vector<string>> res;
        if(n < 0) return res;
        vector<string> nqueue(n, string(n, '.'));
        solve_nqueue(res, nqueue, 0, n);
        return res;
    }
private:
    void solve_nqueue(vector<vector<string>>& res, vector<string>& nqueue, int row, int n) {
        if(row == n){
            res.push_back(nqueue);
            return ;
        }

        for(int col=0; col<n; ++col){
            if(is_valid(nqueue, row, col, n)){
                nqueue[row][col] = 'Q';
                solve_nqueue(res, nqueue, row+1, n);
                nqueue[row][col] = '.';
            }
        }
    }
    bool is_valid(vector<string>& nqueue, int row, int col, int n){
        for(int i=0; i<n; ++i){   //检查列
            if(nqueue[i][col] == 'Q' && i != row) 
                return false;
        }

        for(int i=row-1, j=col-1; i>=0 && j>=0; --i, --j){   //检查135°
            if(nqueue[i][j] == 'Q')
                return false;
        }

        for(int i=row-1, j=col+1; i>=0 && j<n; --i, ++j){  //检查45°，所有的检查都只需要检查已填充的上半部分
            if(nqueue[i][j] == 'Q')
                return false;
        }
        return true;

    }
};

51是要返回所有的结果，并且使用到了string。这里一个不常用的技巧就是vector< string>作为二维数组，也是很好用呢。

52

Follow up for N-Queens problem.

Now, instead outputting board configurations, return the total number of distinct solutions.

class Solution {
public:
    int totalNQueens(int n) {
        vector<int> nqueue(n, -1); //初始化为-1，不能为0，因为后面要用0
        int counter = 0;
        solve_nqueue(nqueue, 0, n, counter);
        return counter;
    }
private:
    void solve_nqueue(vector<int>& nqueue, int row, int n, int& counter) {
        if(row >= n) {
            ++counter;
            return;
        }

        for(int col=0; col<n; ++col){
            nqueue[row] = col;
            if(is_valid(nqueue, row, n))
                solve_nqueue(nqueue, row+1, n, counter);
        }
    }
    bool is_valid(vector<int>& nqueue, int row, int n) {
        for(int i=0; i<row; ++i){
            if(abs(i-row) == abs(nqueue[i]-nqueue[row]) || abs(nqueue[i] == nqueue[row]))
                return false;
        }
        return true;
    }
};

52题只需要返回解法的个数，我使用了一个巧妙的解法，就是使用一维数组index表示row，nqueue[row]表示在该row行nqueue列放置皇后。

然后判断是否有效，使用了一个trick，详见： N皇后问题 –递归及回溯解决方案。