【Leetcode】Intersection of Two Linked List

【题目】：

Write a program to find the node at which the intersection of two singly linked lists begins.

For example, the following two linked lists:

A:          a1 → a2
                   ↘
                     c1 → c2 → c3
                   ↗            
B:     b1 → b2 → b3

begin to intersect at node c1.

Notes:

• If the two linked lists have no intersection at all, return null.
• The linked lists must retain their original structure after the function returns.
• You may assume there are no cycles anywhere in the entire linked structure.
• Your code should preferably run in O(n) time and use only O(1) memory.

【思路】

其实也是看了别人的想法，才试着实现了。

两个list,找共同的部分的开头，问题是，不知道长度，记录不了位置，所以不知道走到哪里才能比较

怎么样才能让两个list的指针同步呢？

答案就是，两个list “相加”，两个指针分别从l1 , l2开始 走到l2 ,l1 ,这样两个指针每次都增加一个，然后走的总共长度相同，而且最后几位，如果有相同的，一定是相等的！

 L1 ： 1 ->2 ->3 ->4-X->X->X

L2 : 5->6-> X ->X->X

L1 + L2  : 1 ->2 ->3 ->4->X->X->X ->5->6-> X ->X->X

L2 +L1 :    5->6-> X ->X->X->1 ->2 ->3 ->4->X->X->X

但是实现起来还是有许多细节需要考虑：

比如p1, p2 走到l1,l2终点的时候怎么衔接，另外只能衔接一次，不能无限循环，所以要设定一个flag,如果衔接过一次，就不能再次衔接了。

而且因为l1 ,l2的长度不相等，指不定p1,p2谁先衔接，如果p1先到衔接点，要在判断一下p2的状况！！如果也要衔接了，就衔接， 如果不要的话，正常加一，然后continue!!到下一循环，因为两个点都已经更新了！！对于p2，vice versu, 所以写了两个大判断，每一个里面包含对另一个的判断。感觉应该会有更优化的结果。

如果都不是衔接点，那就是正常+1.

如果相等了，那么就return p1, p2随便哪个点。

如果循环都结束了还没有找到，那么就是return null

【我提交并且通过的代码】

Runtime: 337 ms

java里面中等水平吧，哈哈，还不错~

/**
 * Definition for singly-linked list.
 * public class ListNode {
 *     int val;
 *     ListNode next;
 *     ListNode(int x) {
 *         val = x;
 *         next = null;
 *     }
 * }
 */
public class Solution {
    public ListNode getIntersectionNode(ListNode headA, ListNode headB) {
ListNode l1 = headA;
		ListNode p1 = headA;
		
		ListNode l2 = headB;
		ListNode p2 = headB;
		
		boolean flag1 = true;
		boolean flag2 = true;
		
		while(p1!=null && p2 != null){
			if (p1 == p2) return p2;
			
			else{
				if(p1.next==null && flag1 == true) {
					p1 = l2;
					flag1 = false;
					if(p2.next == null && flag2 == true) {
						p2 = l1;
						flag2 = false;
						continue;
					}
					p2 = p2.next;
					continue;
					
				}
				if(p2.next==null && flag2 ==true) {
					p2 = l1;
					flag2 = false;
					if(p1.next==null && flag1 == true) {
						p1 = l2;
						flag1 =false;
						continue;
					}
					p1 = p1.next;
					continue;
				}
				p1 = p1.next;
				p2 = p2.next;
			}
			
		}
		return null;
    }
}

【官方答案】

There are many solutions to this problem:

• Brute-force solution (O(mn) running time, O(1) memory):

  For each node ai in list A, traverse the entire list B and check if any node in list B coincides with ai.

• Hashset solution (O(n+m) running time, O(n) or O(m) memory):

  Traverse list A and store the address / reference to each node in a hash set. Then check every node bi in list B: if bi appears in the hash set, then bi is the intersection node.

• Two pointer solution (O(n+m) running time, O(1) memory):
  • Maintain two pointers pA and pB initialized at the head of A and B, respectively. Then let them both traverse through the lists, one node at a time.
  • When pA reaches the end of a list, then redirect it to the head of B (yes, B, that's right.); similarly when pB reaches the end of a list, redirect it the head of A.
  • If at any point pA meets pB, then pA/pB is the intersection node.
  • To see why the above trick would work, consider the following two lists: A = {1,3,5,7,9,11} and B = {2,4,9,11}, which are intersected at node '9'. Since B.length (=4) < A.length (=6), pB would reach the end of the merged list first, because pB traverses exactly 2 nodes less than pA does. By redirecting pB to head A, and pA to head B, we now ask pB to travel exactly 2 more nodes than pA would. So in the second iteration, they are guaranteed to reach the intersection node at the same time.
  • If two lists have intersection, then their last nodes must be the same one. So when pA/pB reaches the end of a list, record the last element of A/B respectively. If the two last elements are not the same one, then the two lists have no intersections.

貌似是一个想法！

看到的更优的解法：

思路是一致的，但是分开单独处理的p1,p2，貌似见过，不错！这次一定要记住！

public class Solution {
public ListNode getIntersectionNode(ListNode headA, ListNode headB) {
    ListNode A = headA;
    ListNode B = headB;
    int times = 0;
    while(times<=1){
        if(A==B)
          return A;
        if(A==null){
            A=headB;
            times++;
        }
        else
          A=A.next;
        if(B==null)
          B=headA;
        else
          B=B.next;              


    }
    return null;
}

Runtime:  352 ms

用hashset 的做法：

public class Solution {
    public ListNode getIntersectionNode(ListNode headA, ListNode headB) {
        HashSet<ListNode> set = new HashSet<ListNode>();
        while(headA!=null||headB!=null){
            if(headA!=null) {
                if(set.contains(headA)){
                    return headA;
                } else {
                    set.add(headA);
                }
                headA=headA.next;
            }

            if(headB!=null) {
                if(set.contains(headB)) {
                    return headB;
                } else {
                    set.add(headB);
                }
                headB=headB.next;
            }
        }
        return null;

    }
}