207. Course Schedule

There are a total of n courses you have to take, labeled from 0 to n - 1.

Some courses may have prerequisites, for example to take course 0 you have to first take course 1, which is expressed as a pair: [0,1]

Given the total number of courses and a list of prerequisite pairs, is it possible for you to finish all courses?

For example:

2, [[1,0]]

There are a total of 2 courses to take. To take course 1 you should have finished course 0. So it is possible.

2, [[1,0],[0,1]]

There are a total of 2 courses to take. To take course 1 you should have finished course 0, and to take course 0 you should also have finished course 1. So it is impossible.

Note:

1. The input prerequisites is a graph represented by a list of edges, not adjacency matrices. Read more about how a graph is represented.
2. You may assume that there are no duplicate edges in the input prerequisites.

click to show more hints.

Hints:

1. This problem is equivalent to finding if a cycle exists in a directed graph. If a cycle exists, no topological ordering exists and therefore it will be impossible to take all courses.
2. Topological Sort via DFS - A great video tutorial (21 minutes) on Coursera explaining the basic concepts of Topological Sort.

1. Topological sort could also be done via BFS.

//1. BFS(Topological Sort)

bool canFinish(int numCourses, vector<vector<int>>& prerequisites)
{
    vector<unordered_set<int>> matrix(numCourses); // save this directed graph
    for(int i = 0; i < prerequisites.size(); ++ i)
        matrix[prerequisites[i][1]].insert(prerequisites[i][0]);
    
    vector<int> d(numCourses, 0); // in-degree
    for(int i = 0; i < numCourses; ++ i)
        for(auto it = matrix[i].begin(); it != matrix[i].end(); ++ it)
            ++ d[*it];
    
    for(int j = 0, i; j < numCourses; ++ j)
    {
        for(i = 0; i < numCourses && d[i] != 0; ++ i); // find a node whose in-degree is 0
        
        if(i == numCourses) // if not find
            return false;
        
        d[i] = -1;
        for(auto it = matrix[i].begin(); it != matrix[i].end(); ++ it)
            -- d[*it];
    }
    
    return true;
}
//2. DFS(Finding cycle)

bool canFinish(int numCourses, vector<vector<int>>& prerequisites)
{
    vector<unordered_set<int>> matrix(numCourses); // save this directed graph
    for(int i = 0; i < prerequisites.size(); ++ i)
        matrix[prerequisites[i][1]].insert(prerequisites[i][0]);
    
    unordered_set<int> visited;
    vector<bool> flag(numCourses, false);
    for(int i = 0; i < numCourses; ++ i)
        if(!flag[i])
            if(DFS(matrix, visited, i, flag))
                return false;
    return true;
}
bool DFS(vector<unordered_set<int>> &matrix, unordered_set<int> &visited, int b, vector<bool> &flag)
{
    flag[b] = true;
    visited.insert(b);
    for(auto it = matrix[b].begin(); it != matrix[b].end(); ++ it)
        if(visited.find(*it) != visited.end() || DFS(matrix, visited, *it, flag))
            return true;
    visited.erase(b);
    return false;
}