[NeetCode 150] Rotate Matrix

Rotate Matrix

Given a square n x n matrix of integers matrix, rotate it by 90 degrees clockwise.

You must rotate the matrix in-place. Do not allocate another 2D matrix and do the rotation.

Example 1:

Input: matrix = [
  [1,2],
  [3,4]
]

Output: [
  [3,1],
  [4,2]
]

Example 2:

Input: matrix = [
  [1,2,3],
  [4,5,6],
  [7,8,9]
]

Output: [
  [7,4,1],
  [8,5,2],
  [9,6,3]
]

Constraints:

n == matrix.length == matrix[i].length
1 <= n <= 20
-1000 <= matrix[i][j] <= 1000

Solution

The most difficult part of this problem is that we cannot allocate another $n^2$ space to do a direct rotate. Noticing that an element at matrix $(i,j)$ will move to $(j,n-i-1)$, $(j,n-i-1)$ will move to $(n-i-1,n-j-1)$, $(n-i-1,n-j-1)$ will move to $(n-j-1,i)$ and $(n-j-1,i)$ will move to $(i,j)$ after rotation. Four elements consist of a loop and one rotation of the loop can be completed in $O(1)$ extra space.

For example, for matrix rotation
$$\left[\begin{array}{lc}a& b\\ c& d\end{array}\right]⟶\left[\begin{array}{lc}c& a\\ d& b\end{array}\right]$$
we can swap $a,b$ first, then swap $b,c$, finally swap $b,d$. The process looks like:
$$\left[\begin{array}{lc}a& b\\ c& d\end{array}\right]\to \left[\begin{array}{lc}b& a\\ c& d\end{array}\right]\to \left[\begin{array}{lc}c& a\\ b& d\end{array}\right]\to \left[\begin{array}{lc}c& a\\ d& b\end{array}\right]$$
So, 3 times’ swap can solve 1 loop, we just need to find out all the start elements of loops in the matrix. Basically, the coordinates of start points are ${\sum }_{i=0}^{n-2}{\sum }_{j=i}^{n-2-i}$, corresponding to the area of ​​an isosceles right triangle with the upper side of the matrix as the hypotenuse.

Code

If you figure out the regulations above clearly, the code is rather easy.

class Solution:
    def rotate(self, matrix: List[List[int]]) -> None:
        length = len(matrix)
        for i in range(length-1):
            for j in range(i, length-i-1):
                matrix[i][j], matrix[j][length-i-1] = matrix[j][length-i-1], matrix[i][j]
                matrix[i][j], matrix[length-j-1][i] = matrix[length-j-1][i], matrix[i][j]
                matrix[length-j-1][i], matrix[length-i-1][length-j-1] = matrix[length-i-1][length-j-1], matrix[length-j-1][i]