【leetcode】72. Edit Distance【java】
Given two words word1 and word2, find the minimum number of steps required to convert word1 to word2. (each operation is counted as 1 step.)
You have the following 3 operations permitted on a word:
a) Insert a character
b) Delete a character
c) Replace a character
解析 动态规划
This is a classic problem of Dynamic Programming. We define the state dp[i][j]
to be the minimum number of operations to convert word1[0..i - 1]
to word2[0..j - 1]
. The state equations have two cases: the boundary case and the general case. Note that in the above notations, both i
and j
take values starting from 1
.
For the boundary case, that is, to convert a string to an empty string, it is easy to see that the mininum number of operations to convert word1[0..i - 1]
to ""
requires at least i
operations (deletions). In fact, the boundary case is simply:
-
dp[i][0] = i
; -
dp[0][j] = j
.
Now let's move on to the general case, that is, convert a non-empty word1[0..i - 1]
to another non-empty word2[0..j - 1]
. Well, let's try to break this problem down into smaller problems (sub-problems). Suppose we have already known how to convert word1[0..i - 2]
to word2[0..j - 2]
, which is dp[i - 1][j - 1]
. Now let's consider word[i - 1]
and word2[j - 1]
. If they are euqal, then no more operation is needed and dp[i][j] = dp[i - 1][j - 1]
. Well, what if they are not equal?
If they are not equal, we need to consider three cases:
- Replace
word1[i - 1]
byword2[j - 1]
(dp[i][j] = dp[i - 1][j - 1] + 1 (for replacement)
); - Delete
word1[i - 1]
andword1[0..i - 2] = word2[0..j - 1]
(dp[i][j] = dp[i - 1][j] + 1 (for deletion)
); - Insert
word2[j - 1]
toword1[0..i - 1]
andword1[0..i - 1] + word2[j - 1] = word2[0..j - 1]
(dp[i][j] = dp[i][j - 1] + 1 (for insertion)
).
Make sure you understand the subtle differences between the equations for deletion and insertion. For deletion, we are actually converting word1[0..i - 2]
to word2[0..j - 1]
, which costs dp[i - 1][j]
, and then deleting the word1[i - 1]
, which costs 1
. The case is similar for insertion.
Putting these together, we now have:
-
dp[i][0] = i
; -
dp[0][j] = j
; -
dp[i][j] = dp[i - 1][j - 1]
, ifword1[i - 1] = word2[j - 1]
; -
dp[i][j] = min(dp[i - 1][j - 1] + 1, dp[i - 1][j] + 1, dp[i][j - 1] + 1)
, otherwise.