Longest Word in Dictionary问题及解法

问题描述：

Given a list of strings words representing an English Dictionary, find the longest word in words that can be built one character at a time by other words in words. If there is more than one possible answer, return the longest word with the smallest lexicographical order.

If there is no answer, return the empty string.

示例:

Input: 
words = ["w","wo","wor","worl", "world"]
Output: "world"
Explanation: 
The word "world" can be built one character at a time by "w", "wo", "wor", and "worl".

Input: 
words = ["a", "banana", "app", "appl", "ap", "apply", "apple"]
Output: "apple"
Explanation: 
Both "apply" and "apple" can be built from other words in the dictionary. However, "apple" is lexicographically smaller than "apply".

问题分析：

本题关键在于题目的理解，题目要求我们找到最长的word，这个word遵循一个规律：这个word删除最后一个字仍能在words中找到该删除后的单词，该单词以此类推。

过程详见代码：

class Solution {
public:
	string longestWord(vector<string>& words) {
		sort(words.begin(), words.end());
        unordered_set<string> built;
        string res;
        for (string w : words) {
            if (w.size() == 1 || built.count(w.substr(0, w.size() - 1))) {
                res = w.size() > res.size() ? w : res;
                built.insert(w);
            }
        }
        return res;
	}
};