Word Ladder

Q:

Given two words (start and end), and a dictionary, find the length of shortest transformation sequence from start to end, such that:

1. Only one letter can be changed at a time
2. Each intermediate word must exist in the dictionary

For example,

Given:
start = "hit"
end = "cog"
dict = ["hot","dot","dog","lot","log"]

As one shortest transformation is "hit" -> "hot" -> "dot" -> "dog" -> "cog",
return its length 5.

Solution:

public class Solution {
    public int ladderLength(String start, String end, Set<String> dict) {
        if (start == null || end == null | dict == null | start.length() == 0 || end.length() == 0 || dict.isEmpty())
            return 0;
        Queue<String> provider = new LinkedList<String>();
        Queue<String> consumer = new LinkedList<String>();
        consumer.offer(start);
        int trans = 1;
        while (!provider.isEmpty() || !consumer.isEmpty()) {
            while (!consumer.isEmpty()) {
                String temp = consumer.poll();
                char[] strChar = temp.toCharArray();
                for (int i = 0; i < strChar.length; i++) {
                    char original = strChar[i];
                    for (char c = 'a'; c < 'z'; c++) {
                        if (c == strChar[i]) {
                            continue;
                        }
                        strChar[i] = c;
                        String tempStr = new String(strChar);
                        if (end.equals(tempStr)) {
                                return trans + 1;
                            }
                        if (dict.contains(tempStr)) {
                            provider.offer(tempStr);
                            dict.remove(tempStr);
                        }
                        strChar[i] = original;
                    }
                    
                }
            }
            trans++;
            Queue<String> tempQ = consumer;
            consumer = provider;
            provider = tempQ;
        }
        return 0;
    }
}