752. Open the Lock
You have a lock in front of you with 4 circular wheels. Each wheel has 10 slots: ‘0’, ‘1’, ‘2’, ‘3’, ‘4’, ‘5’, ‘6’, ‘7’, ‘8’, ‘9’. The wheels can rotate freely and wrap around: for example we can turn ‘9’ to be ‘0’, or ‘0’ to be ‘9’. Each move consists of turning one wheel one slot.
The lock initially starts at ‘0000’, a string representing the state of the 4 wheels.
You are given a list of deadends dead ends, meaning if the lock displays any of these codes, the wheels of the lock will stop turning and you will be unable to open it.
Given a target representing the value of the wheels that will unlock the lock, return the minimum total number of turns required to open the lock, or -1 if it is impossible.
Example 1:
Input: deadends = [“0201”,“0101”,“0102”,“1212”,“2002”], target = “0202”
Output: 6
Explanation:
A sequence of valid moves would be “0000” -> “1000” -> “1100” -> “1200” -> “1201” -> “1202” -> “0202”.
Note that a sequence like “0000” -> “0001” -> “0002” -> “0102” -> “0202” would be invalid,
because the wheels of the lock become stuck after the display becomes the dead end “0102”.
Example 2:
Input: deadends = [“8888”], target = “0009”
Output: 1
Explanation: We can turn the last wheel in reverse to move from “0000” -> “0009”.
Example 3:
Input: deadends = [“8887”,“8889”,“8878”,“8898”,“8788”,“8988”,“7888”,“9888”], target = “8888”
Output: -1
Explanation: We cannot reach the target without getting stuck.
Constraints:
- 1 <= deadends.length <= 500
- deadends[i].length == 4
- target.length == 4
- target will not be in the list deadends.
- target and deadends[i] consist of digits only.
From: LeetCode
Link: 752. Open the Lock
Solution:
Ideas:
1. Create a hash set of deadends for O(1) lookup
2. Check edge cases (starting at deadend or already at target)
3. Use BFS starting from “0000”:
- For each state, generate all 8 possible next moves
- Skip deadends and already visited states
- If target is reached, return the move count
- Otherwise, add valid states to queue and mark as visited
4. Time Complexity: O(10^4) in worst case since there are at most 10,000 possible states (0000-9999)
5. Space Complexity: O(10^4) for the queue, visited set, and deadend set
Code:
// Queue structure for BFS
typedef struct {
char state[5];
int moves;
} QueueNode;
typedef struct {
QueueNode* data;
int front;
int rear;
int capacity;
} Queue;
Queue* createQueue(int capacity) {
Queue* q = (Queue*)malloc(sizeof(Queue));
q->data = (QueueNode*)malloc(capacity * sizeof(QueueNode));
q->front = 0;
q->rear = 0;
q->capacity = capacity;
return q;
}
void enqueue(Queue* q, char* state, int moves) {
strcpy(q->data[q->rear].state, state);
q->data[q->rear].moves = moves;
q->rear++;
}
QueueNode dequeue(Queue* q) {
return q->data[q->front++];
}
bool isEmpty(Queue* q) {
return q->front == q->rear;
}
void freeQueue(Queue* q) {
free(q->data);
free(q);
}
// Hash set for visited states and deadends
#define HASH_SIZE 10007
typedef struct HashNode {
char state[5];
struct HashNode* next;
} HashNode;
typedef struct {
HashNode* buckets[HASH_SIZE];
} HashSet;
int hash(char* state) {
int h = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) {
h = h * 10 + (state[i] - '0');
}
return h % HASH_SIZE;
}
HashSet* createHashSet() {
HashSet* set = (HashSet*)malloc(sizeof(HashSet));
for (int i = 0; i < HASH_SIZE; i++) {
set->buckets[i] = NULL;
}
return set;
}
void addToHashSet(HashSet* set, char* state) {
int h = hash(state);
HashNode* node = (HashNode*)malloc(sizeof(HashNode));
strcpy(node->state, state);
node->next = set->buckets[h];
set->buckets[h] = node;
}
bool containsInHashSet(HashSet* set, char* state) {
int h = hash(state);
HashNode* node = set->buckets[h];
while (node) {
if (strcmp(node->state, state) == 0) {
return true;
}
node = node->next;
}
return false;
}
void freeHashSet(HashSet* set) {
for (int i = 0; i < HASH_SIZE; i++) {
HashNode* node = set->buckets[i];
while (node) {
HashNode* temp = node;
node = node->next;
free(temp);
}
}
free(set);
}
// Generate next states by turning one wheel up or down
void getNextStates(char* current, char nextStates[][5]) {
int count = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) {
// Turn wheel i up
strcpy(nextStates[count], current);
if (nextStates[count][i] == '9') {
nextStates[count][i] = '0';
} else {
nextStates[count][i]++;
}
count++;
// Turn wheel i down
strcpy(nextStates[count], current);
if (nextStates[count][i] == '0') {
nextStates[count][i] = '9';
} else {
nextStates[count][i]--;
}
count++;
}
}
int openLock(char** deadends, int deadendsSize, char* target) {
// Create hash set for deadends
HashSet* deadendSet = createHashSet();
for (int i = 0; i < deadendsSize; i++) {
addToHashSet(deadendSet, deadends[i]);
}
// Check if starting position is a deadend
if (containsInHashSet(deadendSet, "0000")) {
freeHashSet(deadendSet);
return -1;
}
// Check if we're already at target
if (strcmp("0000", target) == 0) {
freeHashSet(deadendSet);
return 0;
}
// BFS setup
Queue* queue = createQueue(10000);
HashSet* visited = createHashSet();
enqueue(queue, "0000", 0);
addToHashSet(visited, "0000");
while (!isEmpty(queue)) {
QueueNode current = dequeue(queue);
// Generate all possible next states
char nextStates[8][5];
getNextStates(current.state, nextStates);
for (int i = 0; i < 8; i++) {
// Skip if this state is a deadend
if (containsInHashSet(deadendSet, nextStates[i])) {
continue;
}
// Skip if already visited
if (containsInHashSet(visited, nextStates[i])) {
continue;
}
// Check if we reached the target
if (strcmp(nextStates[i], target) == 0) {
int result = current.moves + 1;
freeQueue(queue);
freeHashSet(visited);
freeHashSet(deadendSet);
return result;
}
// Add to queue and mark as visited
enqueue(queue, nextStates[i], current.moves + 1);
addToHashSet(visited, nextStates[i]);
}
}
// Target not reachable
freeQueue(queue);
freeHashSet(visited);
freeHashSet(deadendSet);
return -1;
}