Leetcode Generate Parentheses

Given n pairs of parentheses, write a function to generate all combinations of well-formed parentheses.

For example, given n = 3, a solution set is:

"((()))", "(()())", "(())()", "()(())", "()()()"




Idea:

A tricky backtracking problem. Given n pairs of parentheses, there will be n '(' and n ')'. If we have already had l '(' and r ')' in the previous part string, if l==n, next time we can only append next ')' go the previous part to get a valid combination. if l<n, next time we can append one '(' to the previous string and use backtracking the consider next condition. if l<n while r<l, this time we also can add one ')', and go to next recursive function.


code:

public class Solution {
    public List<String> generateParenthesis(int n) {
        List<String> res = new ArrayList<String>();
        StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer();
        dfs(res, buffer, n, 0, 0);
        return res;
    }
    private void dfs(List<String> res, StringBuffer buffer, int n, int left, int right){
        if(left==n){
            int size = buffer.length();
            for(int i=0;i<left-right;i++){
                buffer.append(')');
            }
            res.add(buffer.toString());
            buffer.setLength(size);
            return;
        }
        buffer.append('(');
        dfs(res, buffer, n, left+1, right);
        buffer.setLength(buffer.length()-1);
        if(left>right){
            buffer.append(')');
            dfs(res, buffer, n, left, right+1);
            buffer.setLength(buffer.length()-1);
        }
    }
}