LeetCode 127. Word Ladder（单词梯子）

原题网址：https://leetcode.com/problems/word-ladder/

Given two words (beginWord and endWord), and a dictionary's word list, find the length of shortest transformation sequence from beginWord to endWord, such that:

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

For example,

Given:
beginWord = "hit"
endWord = "cog"
wordList = ["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.

方法：广度优先搜索。

public class Solution {
    public int ladderLength(String beginWord, String endWord, Set<String> wordList) {
        if (beginWord.equals(endWord)) return 1;
        Map<String, String[]> masks = new HashMap<>();
        Map<String, List<String>> ladders = new HashMap<>();
        wordList.add(beginWord);
        wordList.add(endWord);
        Iterator<String> it = wordList.iterator();
        while (it.hasNext()) {
            String word = it.next();
            char[] wa = word.toCharArray();
            String[] mask = new String[wa.length];
            for(int i=0; i<mask.length; i++) {
                char ch = wa[i];
                wa[i] = '*';
                mask[i] = new String(wa);
                wa[i] = ch;
                List<String> ladder = ladders.get(mask[i]);
                if (ladder == null) {
                    ladder = new ArrayList<>();
                    ladders.put(mask[i], ladder);
                }
                ladder.add(word);
            }
            masks.put(word, mask);
        }
        List<String> currents = new ArrayList<>();
        currents.add(beginWord);
        Set<String> visited = new HashSet<>();
        visited.add(beginWord);
        // wordList.remove(beginWord);
        int dist = 0;
        while (!currents.isEmpty()) {
            dist ++;
            if (currents.contains(endWord)) return dist;
            List<String> nexts = new ArrayList<>();
            for(int i=0; i<currents.size(); i++) {
                String current = currents.get(i);
                String[] mask = masks.get(current);
                for(int j=0; j<mask.length; j++) {
                    List<String> ladder = ladders.get(mask[j]);
                    for(int k=0; k<ladder.size(); k++) {
                        String next = ladder.get(k);
                        if (visited.contains(next)) continue;
                        // if (!wordList.contains(next)) continue;
                        nexts.add(next);
                        visited.add(next);
                        // wordList.remove(next);
                    }
                }
            }
            currents = nexts;
        }
        return 0;
    }
}