72. Edit Distance[Hard]

Description

Given two words word1 and word2, find the minimum number of operations required to convert word1 to word2.

You have the following 3 operations permitted on a word:

• Insert a character
• Delete a character
• Replace a character

Example

Example 1:

Input: word1 = "horse", word2 = "ros"
Output: 3

Explanation: 
horse -> rorse (replace 'h' with 'r')
rorse -> rose (remove 'r')
rose -> ros (remove 'e')

Example 2:

Input: word1 = "intention", word2 = "execution"
Output: 5

Explanation: 
intention -> inention (remove 't')
inention -> enention (replace 'i' with 'e')
enention -> exention (replace 'n' with 'x')
exention -> exection (replace 'n' with 'c')
exection -> execution (insert 'u')

Solution

• This is a typical problem of dynamic programming.
• dp[i][j] is the minimun number of operations to convert word1[0...i - 1] to word2[0...j - 1]. It is depended on the smallest number in dp[i - 1][j] + 1, dp[i][j - 1] + 1 and dp[i - 1][j - 1]/dp[i - 1][j - 1] + 1.
  • If word1[i - 1] == word2[j - 1], then we only need to convert word1[0...i - 2] to word2[0...j - 2].
  • If word1[i - 1] != word2[j - 1], then there are three operations:
    • We could convert word1[0...i - 1] to word1[0...i - 2] by deleting a character at first, and then convert word1[0...i - 2] to word2[0...j - 1].
    • We could convert word1[0...i - 1] to word2[0...j - 2] at first, and then convert word2[0...j - 2] to word2[0...j - 1] by inserting a character.
    • We could convert word1[0...i - 2] to word2[0...j - 2] at first, and then convert word2[0...i - 1] to word2[0...j - 1] by replacing a character.

class Solution {
    public int minDistance(String word1, String word2) {
        int l1 = word1.length(), l2 = word2.length();
        int[][] dp = new int[l1 + 1][l2 + 1];
        for (int i = 0; i <= l1; i ++)
            for (int j = 0; j <= l2; j ++) {
                if (i == 0 || j == 0)
                    dp[i][j] = Math.max(i, j);
                else {
                    if (word1.charAt(i - 1) == word2.charAt(j - 1))
                        dp[i][j] = dp[i - 1][j - 1];
                    else dp[i][j] = Math.min(Math.min(dp[i - 1][j] + 1, dp[i][j - 1] + 1), dp[i - 1][j - 1] + 1);
                }
            }
        return dp[l1][l2];
    }
}