Leetcode: Combination Sum

Given a set of candidate numbers (C) and a target number (T), find all unique combinations in C where the candidate numbers sums to T.

The same repeated number may be chosen from C unlimited number of times.

Note:

• All numbers (including target) will be positive integers.
• Elements in a combination (a1, a2, … , ak) must be in non-descending order. (ie, a1 ≤ a2 ≤ … ≤ ak).
• The solution set must not contain duplicate combinations.

For example, given candidate set 2,3,6,7 and target 7, 
A solution set is: 
[7] 

[2, 2, 3] 

public class Solution {
    public ArrayList<ArrayList<Integer>> combinationSum(int[] candidates, int target) {
        ArrayList<ArrayList<Integer>> res = new ArrayList<ArrayList<Integer>>();
        if (candidates == null || candidates.length == 0) {
            return res;
        }
        
        Arrays.sort(candidates);
        ArrayList<Integer> item = new ArrayList<Integer>();
        helperSum(candidates, target, res, item, 0);
        return res;
    }
    
    private void helperSum(int[] candidates, int target, ArrayList<ArrayList<Integer>> res, ArrayList<Integer> item, int start) {
        if (target <  0) {
    		return;
    	}
    	
        if (target == 0) {
            res.add(new ArrayList<Integer>(item));
            return;
        }
        
        for (int i = start; i < candidates.length; i++) {
        	if (i > 0 && candidates[i] == candidates[i - 1]) {
        		continue;
        	}
            item.add(candidates[i]);
            helperSum(candidates, target - candidates[i], res, item, i);
            item.remove(item.size() - 1);
        }
    }
}