Leetcode--Regular Expression

Topic: Hard(At least I thought)

Question:

Implement regular expression matching with support for '.' and '*'.

'.' Matches any single character.
'*' Matches zero or more of the preceding element.

The matching should cover the entire input string (not partial).

The function prototype should be:
bool isMatch(const char *s, const char *p)

Some examples:
isMatch("aa","a") ? false
isMatch("aa","aa") ? true
isMatch("aaa","aa") ? false
isMatch("aa", "a*") ? true
isMatch("aa", ".*") ? true
isMatch("ab", ".*") ? true
isMatch("aab", "c*a*b") ? true

» Solve this problem

Method:

We traverse these two strings together, and make judgement according to the length of p and its second character. So, we have these situations:

1. p.length is 0, then we check whether s.length is 0.

2. p.length is 1 or the second character of p is not '*', then we check whether s.length is 0 or the first character of p is equals to '.' or first of string s.

3. p.length is longer than 1(of course, the second is '*' is included in this case), and then, we traverse the string s to check whether the traversed characters are fit to the '*' situation. Also, it's a recursive algorithm, and once it fits, it will go to next recursion. Thus, if the recursion comes to a true in the end, it returns true, or, it continues traversing the strings until it meets an end.

Code:

public class Solution {
    public boolean isMatch(String s, String p) {
        // Start typing your Java solution below
        // DO NOT write main() function
        if(p.length() == 0) return s.length() == 0;
        else if(p.length() == 1 || p.charAt(1) != '*'){
            if(s.length() == 0 || (p.charAt(0) != '.' && p.charAt(0) != s.charAt(0)))
                return false;
            return isMatch(s.substring(1), p.substring(1));
        }
        else{
            int i = -1;
            while(i<s.length() && (i<0 || p.charAt(0)==s.charAt(i) || p.charAt(0)=='.')){
                if(isMatch(s.substring(i+1), p.substring(2)))
                    return true;
                else
                    i++;
            }
        }
        return false;
    }
}

Summary:

Hard and tricky. Once understood, still time consuming. OK, then.