N-Queens

The n-queens puzzle is the problem of placing n queens on an n×n chessboard such that no two queens attack each other.

Given an integer n, return all distinct solutions to the n-queens puzzle.

Each solution contains a distinct board configuration of the n-queens' placement, where 'Q' and '.' both indicate a queen and an empty space respectively.

For example,
There exist two distinct solutions to the 4-queens puzzle:

[
 [".Q..",  // Solution 1
  "...Q",
  "Q...",
  "..Q."],

 ["..Q.",  // Solution 2
  "Q...",
  "...Q",
  ".Q.."]
]

Analysis: DFS. The index of the existQueens array is the row#, and the value of each element is the column where the queen is placed. 

public class Solution {
    public void solveNQueens(int row, ArrayList<String[]> res, String[] tem, int[] existQueens) {
        if(row == existQueens.length) {
            String[] clone = Arrays.copyOf(tem, tem.length);
            res.add(clone);
            return;
        }
        
        for(int col=0; col<existQueens.length; col++) {
            boolean satisfied = true;
            for(int i=0; i<=row; i++) {
                if(existQueens[i]==col || Math.abs(i-row)==Math.abs(existQueens[i]-col)) {
                    satisfied = false;
                    break;
                }
            }
            if(satisfied) {
                existQueens[row] = col;
                for(int m=0; m<col; m++) {
                    tem[row] += ".";
                }
                tem[row] += "Q";
                for(int q=col+1; q<existQueens.length; q++) {
                    tem[row] += ".";
                }
                
                solveNQueens(row+1, res, tem, existQueens);
                
                existQueens[row] = Integer.MIN_VALUE;
                tem[row] = "";
            }
        }
        return;
    }
    
    public ArrayList<String[]> solveNQueens(int n) {
        ArrayList<String[]> res = new ArrayList<String[]>();
        int[] existQueens = new int[n];
        String[] tem = new String[n];
        Arrays.fill(tem, "");
        Arrays.fill(existQueens, Integer.MIN_VALUE);
        solveNQueens(0, res, tem, existQueens);
        return res;
    }
}