LeetCode 282. Expression Add Operators

Problem Statement

(Source) Given a string that contains only digits 0-9 and a target value, return all possibilities to add binary operators (not unary) +, -, or * between the digits so they evaluate to the target value.

Examples:

"123", 6 -> ["1+2+3", "1*2*3"] 
"232", 8 -> ["2*3+2", "2+3*2"]
"105", 5 -> ["1*0+5","10-5"]
"00", 0 -> ["0+0", "0-0", "0*0"]
"3456237490", 9191 -> []

Tags: Divide and Conquer.

Solution 1 - Backtracking

# https://discuss.leetcode.com/topic/24523/java-standard-backtrace-ac-solutoin-short-and-clear

class Solution(object):
    def addOperators(self, num, target):
        """
        :type num: str
        :type target: int
        :rtype: List[str]
        """
        res = []
        self.helper(num, target, res, 0, 0, 0, '')
        return res


    def helper(self, num, target, res, start_index, left, to_mul, path):
        if start_index == len(num):
            if left == target:
                res.append(path)
        else:
            for index in xrange(start_index, len(num)):
                if num[start_index] == '0' and index != start_index:
                    break
                cur = int(num[start_index : index + 1])
                # If it is the first number, no operators will preceed it.
                if start_index == 0:
                    self.helper(num, target, res, index+1, cur, cur, str(cur))
                else:
                    # If use '+' at current step:
                    self.helper(num, target, res, index+1, left+cur, cur, path+'+'+str(cur))
                    # If use '-' at current step:
                    self.helper(num, target, res, index+1, left-cur, -cur, path+'-'+str(cur))
                    # If use '*' at current step:
                    self.helper(num, target, res, index+1, left-to_mul+to_mul*cur, to_mul*cur, path+'*'+str(cur))