word ladder

Given two words (start and end), and a dictionary, find the length of shortest transformation sequence from start to end, such that:

1. Only one letter can be changed at a time
2. Each intermediate word must exist in the dictionary

For example,

Given:
start = "hit"
end = "cog"
dict = ["hot","dot","dog","lot","log"]

As one shortest transformation is "hit" -> "hot" -> "dot" -> "dog" -> "cog",
return its length 5.

Note:

• Return 0 if there is no such transformation sequence.
• All words have the same length.
• All words contain only lowercase alphabetic characters.

pro：一个start string，一个end string，一个dict，求将start变到end所需要的最小的步数，要求是每一步变换一个字符，中间结果都在dict中。

sol： 就是一个bfs，遍历每一位替换为其他字符所变换得到的单词，进队的条件是这个单词没被放进去过，这里用unordered_set,用map竟然tle......,以及单词在dict中。

code:

class Solution
{
public:
    int ladderLength(string start,string end,unordered_set<string> &dict)
    {
        int i,j,k,step;
        char ch;
        string temp,front;
        unordered_set<string> myset;
        myset.clear();
        queue< pair<string,int> > myque;
        while(!myque.empty())
            myque.pop();
        myque.push(make_pair(start,1));
        myset.insert(start);
        while(!myque.empty())
        {
            front = myque.front().first;
            step = myque.front().second;
            myque.pop();
            if(front==end) 
                return step;
            for(i=0;i<front.length();i++)
            {
                temp=front;
                for(j=0;j<26;j++)
                {
                    char ch=j+'a';
                    if(ch!=front[i])
                    {
                        temp[i]=ch;
                        if(temp==end) return step+1;
                        if(myset.find(temp)==myset.end()&&dict.find(temp)!=dict.end())
                        {
                            myset.insert(temp);
                            myque.push(make_pair(temp,step+1));
                        }
                    }
                }
            } 
        }
        return 0;
    }
};

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