【Leetcode】127. Word Ladder（字符串阶梯）

Given two words (beginWord and endWord), and a dictionary's word list, find the length of shortest transformation sequence from beginWord to endWord, such that:

1. Only one letter can be changed at a time.
2. Each transformed word must exist in the word list. Note that beginWord is nota transformed word.

Note:

• Return 0 if there is no such transformation sequence.
• All words have the same length.
• All words contain only lowercase alphabetic characters.
• You may assume no duplicates in the word list.
• You may assume beginWord and endWord are non-empty and are not the same.

Example 1:

Input:
beginWord = "hit",
endWord = "cog",
wordList = ["hot","dot","dog","lot","log","cog"]

Output: 5

Explanation: As one shortest transformation is "hit" -> "hot" -> "dot" -> "dog" -> "cog",
return its length 5.

Example 2:

Input:
beginWord = "hit"
endWord = "cog"
wordList = ["hot","dot","dog","lot","log"]

Output: 0

Explanation: The endWord "cog" is not in wordList, therefore no possible transformation.

题目大意：

给出开始和结束字符串，同时给出一个字符串字典，字典中所有的字符串都是不重复等长的。每次从上一个字符串只变动一个字节。求出最短次数，从beginWord到endWord。

解题思路：

DFS容易陷入无用的循环中，结果超时。应该使用BFS，将wordList转化为字典，没找到一个下一个符合的字符串，就要通过本位置的'a'-'z'找出全部的符合条件的字符串加入queue。

 

class Solution {
public:
    int ladderLength(string beginWord, string endWord, vector<string>& wordList) {
        // BFS
        unordered_set<string> dict(wordList.begin(), wordList.end());
        queue<string> todo;
        todo.push(beginWord);
        int ladder=1;
        while(!todo.empty()){
            int n = todo.size();
            for(int i=0;i<n;i++){
                string word = todo.front();
                todo.pop();
                if(word == endWord){
                    return ladder;
                }
                dict.erase(word);
                for(int j=0;j<word.size();j++){
                    char c=word[j];
                    for(int k=0;k<26;k++){
                        word[j] = 'a'+k;
                        if(dict.find(word)!=dict.end()){
                            todo.push(word);
                        }
                    }
                    word[j]=c;
                }
            }
            ladder++;
        }
        return 0;
    }
};