Intersection of Two Linked Lists

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;
    }
};