Longest String Chain

1、题目

Given a list of words, each word consists of English lowercase letters.

Let's say word1 is a predecessor of word2 if and only if we can add exactly one letter anywhere in word1 to make it equal to word2.  For example, "abc" is a predecessor of "abac".

A word chain is a sequence of words [word_1, word_2, ..., word_k] with k >= 1, where word_1 is a predecessor of word_2, word_2 is a predecessor of word_3, and so on.

Return the longest possible length of a word chain with words chosen from the given list of words.

 

Example 1:

Input: ["a","b","ba","bca","bda","bdca"]
Output: 4
Explanation: one of the longest word chain is "a","ba","bda","bdca".

 

Note:

1. 1 <= words.length <= 1000
2. 1 <= words[i].length <= 16
3. words[i] only consists of English lowercase letters.

      题目大意是给出一个字符串数组，从中挑选出最长的字串序列 [word_1, word_2, ..., word_k]满足word_1是word_2的predecessor， word_2是word_3是predecessor。其中word_1是word_2的predecessor当且仅当在word_1任意位置添加一个字符使得word_1和word_2相等。

2、解题思路：动态规划

       递推式：定义result[i]表示为以words[i]作为字符链结尾的word,得到递推式：result[i] = max(result[j] + 1 (条件：words[j] 能够作为words[i]的predecessor), result[i]) ( 0 <= j < i)

3、 坑点

   没有说一定要按照给出的顺序进行挑选，因此第一步应该是要按照word的长度进行排序。

4、代码

class Solution {
    public int longestStrChain(String[] words) {
        Arrays.sort(words, Comparator.comparingInt(String::length));
        int[] result = new int[words.length];
        for (int i = 0; i < result.length; i++){
            result[i] = 1;
        }
        
        int max = 1;
        for (int i = 1; i < words.length; i++){
            for (int j = 0; j < i; j++){
                if (isPredecessor(words[j], words[i])){
                    result[i] = Math.max(result[j] + 1, result[i]);
                    max = Math.max(max, result[i]);
                }
            }
        }
        return max;
    }
    
    public boolean isPredecessor(String str1, String str2){
        if (str1.length() + 1 != str2.length()){
            return false;
        }
        
        int index2 = 0;
        int index1 = 0;
        while (index1 < str1.length() && index2 < str2.length()){
            if (str1.charAt(index1) == str2.charAt(index2)){
                index1++;
                index2++;
            }
            else if ((index2 + 1 < str2.length()) && 
                     (str1.charAt(index1) == str2.charAt(index2 + 1))){
                index1++;
                index2 += 2;
            }
            else {
                return false;
            }
        }
        return index1 == str1.length() &&
            ((index2 == str2.length()) || (index2 == str2.length() -1));
    }
}

改进版：

class Solution {
     public int longestStrChain(String[] words) {
        Arrays.sort(words, Comparator.comparingInt(String::length));
        int[] result = new int[words.length];
        int max = Integer.MIN_VALUE;
        for (int i = 0; i < words.length; i++) {
            result[i] = 1;
            for (int j = 0; j < i; j++) {
                if (isPredecessor(words[j], words[i])) {
                    result[i] = Math.max(result[j] + 1, result[i]);
                }
            }
            max = Math.max(max, result[i]);
        }

        return max;
    }

     public boolean isPredecessor(String str1, String str2){
            if (str1.length() + 1 != str2.length()){
                return false;
            }
            for (int index1 = 0, index2 = 0, diff = 0; index1 < str1.length(); ){
                if (str1.charAt(index1) == str2.charAt(index2)){
                    index1++;
                    index2++;
                }
                else {
                    diff++;
                    if (diff > 1) {
                        return false;
                    }
                    index2 ++;
                }
            }
            return true;
    }
}