Minimum Genetic Mutation

A gene string can be represented by an 8-character long string, with choices from "A", "C", "G", "T".

Suppose we need to investigate about a mutation (mutation from "start" to "end"), where ONE mutation is defined as ONE single character changed in the gene string.

For example, "AACCGGTT" -> "AACCGGTA" is 1 mutation.

Also, there is a given gene "bank", which records all the valid gene mutations. A gene must be in the bank to make it a valid gene string.

Now, given 3 things - start, end, bank, your task is to determine what is the minimum number of mutations needed to mutate from "start" to "end". If there is no such a mutation, return -1.

Note:

1. Starting point is assumed to be valid, so it might not be included in the bank.
2. If multiple mutations are needed, all mutations during in the sequence must be valid.
3. You may assume start and end string is not the same.

Example 1:

start: "AACCGGTT"
end:   "AACCGGTA"
bank: ["AACCGGTA"]

return: 1

Example 2:

start: "AACCGGTT"
end:   "AAACGGTA"
bank: ["AACCGGTA", "AACCGCTA", "AAACGGTA"]

return: 2

Example 3:

start: "AAAAACCC"
end:   "AACCCCCC"
bank: ["AAAACCCC", "AAACCCCC", "AACCCCCC"]

return: 3

一道draft里边的题。跟同学一块看了下。

发现跟word ladder很像。算的是最小距离，所以要用bfs。如果是算全部的结果的话一般会用dfs。

思路有了以后就开始实现了。

觉得比较慢的地方是在如何找到只相差一个字符的字符串那里。用了String拼接的方法。将字典转化成set。如果在字典中找到了这个值，那么加入到结果集，准备放入队列，并且把它删除掉。为了防止循环。

还有一个细节：在计算高度的时候，使用两个计数器, preLevel, curLevel， 分别记录的是上一层还有几个没有遍历完，以及当前层有几个需要遍历；在这个while循环里边，是不会对curLevel进行减法运算的，每一次都是对preLevel--, 当 prelevel == 0的时候，说明上面一层的元素都被遍历过了，这个时候再更新层信息，也就是代码里的move。更新的时间也要主意，要等到把下一层的neighbour添加完（也就是curLevel++ 这段代码要先执行），然后再判断是否需要更新preLevel, curLevel的值。

最后，如果在while循环里找到结果，直接返回，move+1, 这里举个例子应该能够解释的通; 在while循环外，return -1；

代码：

public int minMutation(String start, String end, String[] bank) {
        //trie?
        //bfs应该没跑了
        if(bank == null || bank.length == 0) return -1;
        if(start.length() != end.length()) return -1;
        boolean find = false;
        HashSet<String> bankSet = new HashSet<String>();
        for(String item: bank) bankSet.add(item);

        Queue<String> queue = new LinkedList<>();
        queue.offer(start);
        int moves = 0;
        int answer = 0;
        int preLevel = 1;
        int curLevel = 0;
        while(!queue.isEmpty()){
            String string = queue.poll();
            List<String> neighbours = getOneMutate(string, bankSet);
            for(String neighbour: neighbours){
                curLevel++;
                queue.offer(neighbour);
                if(neighbour.equals(end)){
                    find = true;
                    return moves+1;
                }
            }
            preLevel--;
            if(preLevel == 0){
                preLevel = curLevel;
                curLevel = 0;
                moves++;
            }
        }
        return -1;
    }
    private static char[] GENES = {'A', 'C', 'T', 'G'};
    private List<String> getOneMutate(String s, HashSet<String> bankSet){
        List<String> result = new ArrayList<>();
        //自己动
        for(int i=0;i<s.length();i++){
            //change one bit
            for(int j=0;j<GENES.length;j++){
                String newString = s.substring(0, i)+GENES[j]+s.substring(i+1);
                if(bankSet.contains(newString)){
                    result.add(newString);
                    bankSet.remove(newString);
                }
            }
        }
        return result;
    }