LeetCode: Combination Sum non recursive

The basic idea, shown in the previous blog

 http://blog.csdn.net/u010204902/article/details/8803342

is to use DFS

I tried to use non-recursive method to do the DFS.  I need to maintain a stack by myself.  It does not appear to be faster than using recursion.

It pass the large test around 80 ms

class Solution {
public:
    vector<vector<int> > combinationSum(vector<int> &candidates, int target) {
        // Start typing your C/C++ solution below
        // DO NOT write int main() function
        unique(candidates.begin(), candidates.end());
        sort(candidates.begin(), candidates.end());
        vector<vector<int>> ret;
        int max_size = target/candidates.front();
        vector<int> put_num(max_size+1);
        vector<int> idx(max_size+2);
        for(size_t i=0; i<max_size; i++)
            idx[i] = -1;
        idx[0] = 0;
        size_t length = 1;
        put_num[0] = candidates[0];
        target -= candidates[0];
        while(length){
            if(target <= 0) {
                if(target == 0)
                    ret.push_back(vector<int>(put_num.begin(), put_num.begin()+length));
                target += put_num[length - 1];
                length --;
            } else {
                if(idx[length] == -1){
                    idx[length] = idx[length-1];
                    put_num[length] = candidates[idx[length-1]];
                    target -= put_num[length];
                    idx[length+1] = -1;
                    length++;
                } else {
                    target += put_num[length - 1];
                    if(idx[length-1]<candidates.size()-1){     
                        idx[length-1]++;
                        put_num[length-1] = candidates[idx[length-1]];
                        target -= put_num[length-1];
                        idx[length] = -1;
                    } else 
                        length --;
                }
            }
        }
        return ret;
    }
};