题目:
Write a program to find the node at which the intersection of two singly linked lists begins.
For example, the following two linked lists:
A: a1 → a2 ↘ c1 → c2 → c3 ↗ B: b1 → b2 → b3
begin to intersect at node c1.
Notes:
- If the two linked lists have no intersection at all, return
null
. - The linked lists must retain their original structure after the function returns.
- You may assume there are no cycles anywhere in the entire linked structure.
- Your code should preferably run in O(n) time and use only O(1) memory.
思路:
- Brute-force solution (O(mn) running time, O(1) memory):
For each node ai in list A, traverse the entire list B and check if any node in list B coincides with ai.
- Hashset solution (O(n+m) running time, O(n) or O(m) memory):
Traverse list A and store the address / reference to each node in a hash set. Then check every node bi in list B: if bi appears in the hash set, then bi is the intersection node.
- Two pointer solution (O(n+m) running time, O(1) memory):
- Maintain two pointers pA and pB initialized at the head of A and B, respectively. Then let them both traverse through the lists, one node at a time.
- When pA reaches the end of a list, then redirect it to the head of B (yes, B, that's right.); similarly when pB reaches the end of a list, redirect it the head of A.
- If at any point pA meets pB, then pA/pB is the intersection node.
- To see why the above trick would work, consider the following two lists: A = {1,3,5,7,9,11} and B = {2,4,9,11}, which are intersected at node '9'. Since B.length (=4) < A.length (=6), pB would reach the end of the merged list first, because pB traverses exactly 2 nodes less than pA does. By redirecting pB to head A, and pA to head B, we now ask pB to travel exactly 2 more nodes than pA would. So in the second iteration, they are guaranteed to reach the intersection node at the same time.
- If two lists have intersection, then their last nodes must be the same one. So when pA/pB reaches the end of a list, record the last element of A/B respectively. If the two last elements are not the same one, then the two lists have no intersections.
代码:
/**
* Definition for singly-linked list.
* struct ListNode {
* int val;
* ListNode *next;
* ListNode(int x) : val(x), next(NULL) {}
* };
*/
class Solution {
public:
int getCount(ListNode *pHead)
{
ListNode *pCurrent = pHead;
int count = 0;
while (pCurrent != NULL)
{
count++;
pCurrent = pCurrent->next;
}
return count;
}
ListNode *getIntersectionNode(ListNode *headA, ListNode *headB)
{
if (headA == NULL && headB == NULL)
{
return NULL;
}
else if (headA == NULL || headB == NULL)
{
return NULL;
}
else if (headA == headB)
{
return headA;
}
int countA = getCount(headA);
int countB = getCount(headB);
int diff;
int count = abs(countA - countB);
while (count > 0)
{
if (countA > countB)
{
headA = headA->next;
}
else {
headB = headB->next;
}
count--;
}
//边界--->如果在链表的尾部---->挂了
if (headA == headB)
{
return headA;
}
while (headA != NULL && headB != NULL && headA != headB)
{
headA = headA->next;
headB = headB->next;
if (headA == headB)
{
return headA;
}
}
return NULL;
}
};