Word Ladder (LeetCode)

Given two words (start and end), and a dictionary, find the length of shortest transformation sequence from start to end, such that:

1. Only one letter can be changed at a time
2. Each intermediate word must exist in the dictionary

For example,

Given:
start = "hit"
end = "cog"
dict = ["hot","dot","dog","lot","log"]

As one shortest transformation is "hit" -> "hot" -> "dot" -> "dog" -> "cog",
return its length 5.

Note:

• Return 0 if there is no such transformation sequence.
• All words have the same length.
• All words contain only lowercase alphabetic characters.

之前写代码的时候一直有一个地方疏忽了，tamp = s.substring(0,i)+(char)j+s.substring(i+1). j的值是数字，记得要转换成char.

public int ladderLength(String start, String end, HashSet<String> dict) {
        int step = 1;
        Queue<String> curLevel = new LinkedList<String>();
        Queue<String> nextLevel = new LinkedList<String>();
        curLevel.add(start);
        while(!curLevel.isEmpty()){
            String s = curLevel.remove();
            String tmp = "";
            for(int i=0; i<s.length();i++){
                for(int j='a';j<='z';j++){
                    if(s.charAt(i)==j)
                        continue;
                    tmp = s.substring(0,i)+(char)j+s.substring(i+1);
                    if(tmp.equals(end))
                        return step+1;
                    if(dict.contains(tmp)){
                        nextLevel.add(tmp);
                        dict.remove(tmp);
                    }
                }
            }
            if(curLevel.isEmpty() && !nextLevel.isEmpty()){
                step+=1;
                curLevel = new LinkedList<String>(nextLevel);
                nextLevel.clear();
            }
        }
        return 0;
        
    }