***LeetCode160. Intersection of Two Linked Lists

Write a program to find the node at which the intersection of two singly linked lists begins.

For example, the following two linked lists:

A:          a1 → a2
                   ↘
                     c1 → c2 → c3
                   ↗            
B:     b1 → b2 → b3

begin to intersect at node c1.

 

Notes:

• If the two linked lists have no intersection at all, return null.
• The linked lists must retain their original structure after the function returns.
• You may assume there are no cycles anywhere in the entire linked structure.
• Your code should preferably run in O(n) time and use only O(1) memory.

<思路>自己没想出来，看看discuss里大神的。

           假如长度不一致（比如例子），那短链表会先遍历完，然后会指向长链表的头。而长的遍历完一次，继续向下则指向短链表的头。这时候，他们会同时到达相等的节点（如果没有就一起遍历到结束）。也就是(长链表+短链表)的长度等于(短链表+长链表)的长度。所以有相同节点时候会遇到。很神奇！

           pa和pb是两个指针。跳出while循环有两种方式，一个是两个链表都遍历完了，另一个是找到共同节点。

# Definition for singly-linked list.
# class ListNode(object):
#     def __init__(self, x):
#         self.val = x
#         self.next = None

class Solution(object):
    def getIntersectionNode(self, headA, headB):
        """
        :type head1, head1: ListNode
        :rtype: ListNode
        """
        if not headA or not headB:
            return None
            
        pa = headA
        pb = headB
        
        while pa is not pb:
            pa = headB if pa is None else pa.next
            pb = headA if pb is None else pb.next
        return pa