Given two words (start and end), and a dictionary, find the length of shortest transformation sequence from start to end, such that:
- 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
.
Note:
- Return 0 if there is no such transformation sequence.
- All words have the same length.
- All words contain only lowercase alphabetic characters.
因为要返回level,关键在于知道当前level word在queue里的数目。所以我们维护两个变量,一个是当前数目curNum,一个是上一个level的数目lastNum。每加上一个word,就让当前curNum++;如果取出一个word,lastNum-- ;直到lastNum == 0,说明这一个level里的word已经取完,level++;
public int ladderLength(String start, String end, Set<String> dict) {
int level = 1;
Set<String> visited = new HashSet<String>();
Queue<String> queue = new LinkedList<String>();
queue.add(start);
visited.add(start);
int n = start.length();
int curNum = 0;
int lastNum = 1;
while(!queue.isEmpty()) {
String cur = queue.poll();
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
char[] curArray = cur.toCharArray();
for (char c = 'a'; c <= 'z'; c++) {
if (c == cur.charAt(i)) {
continue;
}
curArray[i] = c;
String tmp = new String(curArray);
if (end.equals(tmp)) {
return level+1;
}
if (dict.contains(tmp) && !visited.contains(tmp)){
queue.offer(tmp);
visited.add(tmp);
curNum++;
}
}
}
lastNum--;
if (lastNum == 0) {
lastNum = curNum;
curNum = 0;
level++;
}
}
return 0;
}