[Leetcode 39, Medium] Combination Sum

Problem:

Given a set of candidate numbers (C) and a target number (T), find all unique combinations in C where the candidate numbers sums to T.

The same repeated number may be chosen from C unlimited number of times.

Note:

• All numbers (including target) will be positive integers.
• Elements in a combination (a1, a2, … , ak) must be in non-descending order. (ie, a1 ≤ a2 ≤ … ≤ ak).
• The solution set must not contain duplicate combinations.

For example, given candidate set 2,3,6,7 and target 7, 
A solution set is: 
[7] 
[2, 2, 3] 

Analysis:

Solutions:

C++:

    int GetLastIndex(vector<int> &candidates, int target, int end_index)
    {
        int new_end_index = -1;
        for(int i = end_index; i >= 0; --i) {
            if((i == end_index || candidates[i + 1] >= target) && candidates[i] <= target) {
                new_end_index = i;
                break;
            }
        }
        return new_end_index;
    }

    void GetCombinationSum(vector<int> &candidates, int target, int end_index, vector<int> current, vector<vector<int> >& results)
    {
        vector<int> current_backup = current;
        for(int i = end_index; i >= 0; --i) {
            int new_target = target - candidates[i];
            current = current_backup;
            current.push_back(candidates[i]);
            if(new_target < candidates[0]) {
                if(new_target == 0) {
                    sort(current.begin(), current.end());
                    results.push_back(current);
                }
                continue;
            }
            int new_end_index = GetLastIndex(candidates, new_target, i);
            if(new_end_index == -1)
                continue;
            GetCombinationSum(candidates, new_target, new_end_index, current, results);
        }
    }

    vector<vector<int> > combinationSum(vector<int> &candidates, int target) {
        vector<vector<int> > results;
        if(target <= 0 || candidates.empty())
            return results;
            
        sort(candidates.begin(), candidates.end());

        int end_index = GetLastIndex(candidates, target, candidates.size() - 1);
        if(end_index <= 0) {
            if(target % candidates[0] == 0)
                results.push_back(vector<int>(target / candidates[0], candidates[0]));
            return results;
        }
        
        vector<int> current;
        GetCombinationSum(candidates, target, end_index, current, results);
        return results;
    }

Java :

Python: