[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.."]
]

N皇后问题~皇后之间不能同行，同列，同斜线~可以使用columnForRow[n]记录N皇后的位置，因为每一行有且只有一个皇后，所以从第一行到第n行，依次放置第n个皇后~columnForRow[n]记录第n个皇后所在列数,即第i个皇后放置在第i行第columnForRow[i]列; 每次递归放置皇后的时候，都要检查是否冲突（检查是否同列，并且不在对角线上，也就是行的差和列的差的绝对值不相等）

class Solution:
    # @return a list of lists of string
    def solveNQueens(self, n):
        self.res = []
        self.helper(n, 0, [-1] * n)
        return self.res
        
    def helper(self, n, row, columnForRow):
        if row == n:
            item = []
            for i in xrange(n):
                strRow = ""
                for j in xrange(n):
                    if columnForRow[i] == j:
                        strRow += 'Q'
                    else:
                        strRow += '.'
                item.append(strRow)
            self.res.append(item)
            return
        for i in xrange(n):
            columnForRow[row] = i
            if self.check(row, columnForRow):
                self.helper(n, row + 1, columnForRow)
    
    def check(self, row, columnForRow):
        for i in xrange(row):
            if columnForRow[row] == columnForRow[i] or abs(row - i) == abs(columnForRow[row] - columnForRow[i]):
                return False
        return True