A robot is located at the top-left corner of a m x n grid (marked 'Start' in the diagram below).
The robot can only move either down or right at any point in time. The robot is trying to reach the bottom-right corner of the grid (marked 'Finish' in the diagram below).
How many possible unique paths are there?
Above is a 3 x 7 grid. How many possible unique paths are there?
Note: m and n will be at most 100.
这题大概是做LeetCode以来最简单的一道题了。注意的是Robot一开始是在左上角的格子里,而不是在棋盘外面,所以往右和往下能走的步数是m-1和n-1。
于是结果就是在m+n-2个位置里选出m-1个位置用来向右走,剩下的n-1个位置用来向下走。就是(m+n-2)!/(m-1)!(n-1)!.
直接算(m+n-2)!的话可能会溢出,所以直接算(m+n-2)!/(m-1)!,少乘几个数。
public class Solution {
public int uniquePaths(int m, int n) {
//the result would be (m-1+n-1)!/(m-1)!(n-1)!
long numerator = 1;
int bigger = m > n ? m - 1 : n - 1;
int smaller = bigger == m - 1 ? n - 1 : m - 1;
//divide the bigger one's factorial while calculating (m+n)!
for(int i = m + n - 2; i > bigger; i--){
numerator *= i;
}
long denominator = 1;
for(int i = 2; i <= smaller; i++){
denominator *= i;
}
return (int)(numerator / denominator);
}
}