#72 Edit Distance

Description

Given two words word1 and word2, find the minimum number of operations required to convert word1 to word2.

You have the following 3 operations permitted on a word:

• Insert a character
• Delete a character
• Replace a character

Examples

Example 1:

Input: word1 = “horse”, word2 = “ros”
Output: 3
**Explanation: **
horse -> rorse (replace ‘h’ with ‘r’)
rorse -> rose (remove ‘r’)
rose -> ros (remove ‘e’)

Example 2:

Input: word1 = “intention”, word2 = “execution”
Output: 5
Explanation:
intention -> inention (remove ‘t’)
inention -> enention (replace ‘i’ with ‘e’)
enention -> exention (replace ‘n’ with ‘x’)
exention -> exection (replace ‘n’ with ‘c’)
exection -> execution (insert ‘u’)

解题思路

也可以算作是一个动态规划，里面的更新函数是
$$answer[i][j]=min(answer[i-1][j]+1,answer[i][j-1]+1,answer[i-1][j-1]+same)$$
其中$same$的值
$$same=1,word1[i]!=word2[j]$$
$$same=0,word1[i]==word2[j]$$
很明显
$answer[i-1][j]+1$表示插入操作，
$answer[i][j-1]+1$表示删除操作，
$answer[i-1][j-1]+same$表示替换操作
求$min$表示三者相遇取其轻

当然这个方法不会是我自己想出来的……是从网上摸得orz
初始化就是$answer[i][0]=i,answer[0][i]=i$，可以理解为一个word是空字符串，那另一个word就要不停进行插入操作对齐进行填充。

代码

class Solution {
    public int min(int a, int b, int c){
        if(a <= b && a <= c)
            return a;
        if(b <= a && b <= c)
            return b;
        if(c <= a && c <= b)
            return c;
        return a;
    }
    public int minDistance(String word1, String word2) {
        int len1 = word1.length();
        int len2 = word2.length();
        
        int[][] ans = new int[len1 + 1][len2 + 1];
        int i, j;
        for(i = 0; i < len1 + 1; i++){
            ans[i][0] = i;
        }
        for(i = 0; i < len2 + 1; i++){
            ans[0][i] = i;
        }
        
        for(i = 1; i < len1 + 1; i++){
            for(j = 1; j < len2 + 1; j++){
                int add = 1;
                if(word1.charAt(i - 1) == word2.charAt(j - 1))
                    add = 0;
                ans[i][j] = min(ans[i - 1][j] + 1, ans[i - 1][j - 1] + add, ans[i][j - 1] + 1);
            }
        }
        return ans[len1][len2];
    }
}