Leetcode: N-Queens

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.."]
]

Use recursion within loop. Use a loop to enumerate over all possible chessboards and store the valid ones in the result. 

public class Solution {
    public ArrayList<String[]> solveNQueens(int n) {
        ArrayList<String[]> res = new ArrayList<String[]>();
        if (n <= 0) {
            return res;
        }
        
        ArrayList<Integer> cols = new ArrayList<Integer>();
        helper(n, cols, res);
        return res;
    }
    
    private void helper(int n, ArrayList<Integer> cols, ArrayList<String[]> res) {
        if (cols.size() == n) {
            res.add(chessboard(cols));
            return;
        }
        
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
            if (isValid(cols, i)) {
                cols.add(i);
                helper(n, cols, res);
                cols.remove(cols.size() - 1);
            }
        }
    }
        
    private boolean isValid(ArrayList<Integer> cols, int col) {
        int row = cols.size();
        for (int i = 0; i < row; i++) {
            if (cols.get(i) == col || Math.abs(cols.get(i) - col) == Math.abs(i - row)) {
                return false;
            }
        }
        return true;
    }   
    
    private String[] chessboard(ArrayList<Integer> cols) {
        String[] chess = new String[cols.size()];
        for (int i = 0; i < cols.size(); i++) {
            chess[i] = "";
            for (int j = 0; j < cols.size(); j++) {
                if (j == cols.get(i)) {
                    chess[i] += "Q";
                } else {
                    chess[i] += ".";
                }
            }
        }
        
        return chess;
    }
}