Largest Number @leetCode

Given a list of non negative integers, arrange them such that they form the largest number.

For example, given [3, 30, 34, 5, 9], the largest formed number is 9534330.

Note: The result may be very large, so you need to return a string instead of an integer.

Credits:
Special thanks to @ts for adding this problem and creating all test cases.

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Have you met this question in a real interview?

思路： 第一想法是类似于premutation II 的解法， 用dfs可以解决， 但肯定 超时。

于是想到了利用 heap 来做， 关键点在于comparator， 直接比较会因为有长度不同的原因导致有错误case

后来想了好久， 利用 s1 + s2 和 s2 + s1 来进行比较，可以完美的解决这个问题， 因为他的本质比较就是相加后比较。

public class Solution {
    public String largestNumber(int[] num) {
        if (num.length < 0)
			return "";
		Comparator<String> comparator = new Comparator<String>() {
			public int compare(String s1, String s2) {
				String l1 = s1 + s2;
				String l2 = s2 + s1;
				for (int i = 0; i < l1.length(); i++) {
					if (l1.charAt(i) > l2.charAt(i))
						return -1;
					else if (l1.charAt(i) < l2.charAt(i))
						return 1;
				}
				return 0;
			}
		};
		Queue<String> queue = new PriorityQueue<String>(num.length, comparator);
		for (int i : num)
			queue.add(String.valueOf(i));
		StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
		while (!queue.isEmpty())
			sb.append(queue.poll());
		if(sb.charAt(0) == '0'){//All 0s situation
		    sb = (new StringBuilder()).append('0');
		}
		return sb.toString();
    }
}

超时解法：

public String largestNumber(int[] num) {
		if (num.length < 0)
			return "";
		Arrays.sort(num);
		String[] ret = { "0" };
		permutation(num, 0, ret);
		return ret[0];
	}

	private void permutation(int[] num, int start, String[] ret) {
		if (start >= num.length) {
			StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
			for (int i : num)
				sb.append(i);
			String s = sb.toString();
			if (ret[0].compareTo(s) < 0) {
				ret[0] = s;
			}
			return;
		}
		HashSet<Integer> visited = new HashSet<Integer>();
		for (int i = start; i < num.length; i++) {
			if (!visited.contains(num[i])) {
				swap(num, i, start);
				permutation(num, start + 1, ret);
				swap(num, i, start);
				visited.add(num[i]);
			}
		}
	}