Leetcode 142. Linked List Cycle II

Problem

Given the head of a linked list, return the node where the cycle begins. If there is no cycle, return null.

There is a cycle in a linked list if there is some node in the list that can be reached again by continuously following the next pointer. Internally, pos is used to denote the index of the node that tail’s next pointer is connected to (0-indexed). It is -1 if there is no cycle. Note that pos is not passed as a parameter.

Do not modify the linked list.

Algorithm

Use set to save the data and test if have the same item.

Code

# Definition for singly-linked list.
# class ListNode:
#     def __init__(self, x):
#         self.val = x
#         self.next = None

class Solution:
    def detectCycle(self, head: Optional[ListNode]) -> Optional[ListNode]:
        if not head or not head.next:
            return None
        
        s = set()
        p0 = head
        while p0 and p0.next:
            if p0 in s:
                return p0
            s.add(p0)
            p0 = p0.next
        
        return None