[Leetcode] Generate Parentheses

Given n pairs of parentheses, write a function to generate all combinations of well-formed parentheses.

public class Solution {
   public List<String> generateParenthesis(int n) {
    ArrayList<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
    Stack<String> stack = new Stack<String>();
    Stack<Integer> validationStack = new Stack<Integer>();
    stack.push("(");
    validationStack.push(0);
    while(stack.size() != 0)
    {
        String s = stack.pop();
        int v = validationStack.pop();
        if(s.length() == n * 2)
        {
            list.add(s);
            continue;
        }
        if(s.length() - v < n)
        {
            stack.push(s + "(");
            validationStack.push(v);
        }
        if(2 * v < s.length())
        {
            stack.push(s + ")");
            validationStack.push(v+1);
        }
    }
    return list;
}
}

v is the number of closed parenthesis. 

if s.length - v < n, then the open parenthesis is still available. we can still add "(" to this string.

if 2*v < s.length, then the string has at least one open parenthesis that hasn't been matched. so ")" is needed. 

if 2*v = s.length, then all open parenthesis are matched. nothing should be done, return back to the beginning of loop. pop a new string. 

2*v > s.length is never gonna happen for the reason that it means a closed parenthesis is before any unmatched open one. 

Note: the algorithm uses stack to avoid iteration. Every time, it pops the string, but one or more Strings are pushed to stack.