51. N-Queens

Problem:

The n-queens puzzle is the problem of placing n queens on an n×n chessboard such that no two queens attack each other.

Given an integer n, return all distinct solutions to the n-queens puzzle.

Each solution contains a distinct board configuration of the n-queens' placement, where 'Q' and '.' both indicate a queen and an empty space respectively.

For example,
There exist two distinct solutions to the 4-queens puzzle:

[
 [".Q..",  // Solution 1
  "...Q",
  "Q...",
  "..Q."],

 ["..Q.",  // Solution 2
  "Q...",
  "...Q",
  ".Q.."]
]

solution:

#include<iostream>
#include<string>
#include<vector>


using namespace std;


class Solution {
public:
std::vector<std::vector<std::string> > solveNQueens(int n) {
std::vector<std::vector<std::string> > res;
std::vector<std::string> nQueens(n, std::string(n, '.'));
solveNQueens(res, nQueens, 0, n);
return res;
}
private:
void solveNQueens(std::vector<std::vector<std::string> > &res, std::vector<std::string> &nQueens, int row, int &n) {
if (row == n) {
res.push_back(nQueens);
return;
}
for (int col = 0; col != n; ++col)
if (isValid(nQueens, row, col, n)) {
nQueens[row][col] = 'Q';
solveNQueens(res, nQueens, row + 1, n);
nQueens[row][col] = '.';
}
}
bool isValid(std::vector<std::string> &nQueens, int row, int col, int &n) {
//check if the column had a queen before.
for (int i = 0; i != row; ++i)
if (nQueens[i][col] == 'Q')
return false;
//check if the 45° diagonal had a queen before.
for (int i = row - 1, j = col - 1; i >= 0 && j >= 0; --i, --j)
if (nQueens[i][j] == 'Q')
return false;
//check if the 135° diagonal had a queen before.
for (int i = row - 1, j = col + 1; i >= 0 && j < n; --i, ++j)
if (nQueens[i][j] == 'Q')
return false;
return true;
}
};


int main()
{
Solution s;
std::vector<std::vector<std::string>> queen;
int n;
cin >> n;
queen = s.solveNQueens(n);
int count = 0;
for (auto i : queen)
{
for (auto j : i)
{
cout << j << endl;
}
cout << "next:"<< endl;
count++;
}
cout << count << endl;
cin >> n;
return 0;
}