问题:
Given two words (
start
and
end
), and a dictionary, find the length of shortest transformation sequence from
start
to
end
, such that:
问题扩展: 单词变换路径 Word Ladder II
- Only one letter can be changed at a time
- Each intermediate word must exist in the dictionary
For example, Given:
start = "hit"
end = "cog"
dict = ["hot","dot","dog","lot","log"]
As one shortest transformation is "hit" -> "hot" -> "dot" -> "dog" -> "cog"
,
return its length 5
.
思路:寻找邻接点的方法有两个:一个是遍历字典集合,分别判断是否是邻接的。另一个是根据字母表直接构造邻接的元素,然后判断其是否在字典集合中。当字典中数据个数较小时选第一个;当字典中数据个数多时选第二个。
这是一个无权图的路径寻找问题。可以用DFS、也可以用BFS。虽然都可以用,但是实际上,DFS和BFS在求解的时间复杂度上差别巨大。
BFS每一层扫描都把所有能直接到达的字符串拿到,并且一定会在最近的层数被扫描到。所以BFS能更快的找到最短路径,并且遍历的次数不会太多。而DFS则不适合寻找最短路径。所以无权图的最短路径问题优先选择BFS。
class Solution {
public:
int ladderLength(string start, string end, unordered_set<string> &dict) {
queue<string> que;
queue<int> level;//用来记录当前所在的层次
int cur = 2;
level.push(cur);
que.push(start);
dict.insert(end);
while(!que.empty())
{
string now = que.front();
que.pop();
cur = level.front();
level.pop();
for(int i=0;i<start.length();i++)
{
for(int j=0;j<26;j++)
{
string next = now;
next[i] = 'a' + j;
if(now != next && dict.find(next) != dict.end())
{
if(next == end)
return cur;
que.push(next);
level.push(cur+1);
dict.erase(next);
}
}
}
}
return 0;
}
};
问题扩展: 单词变换路径 Word Ladder II