LeetCode | 77. Combinations

77. Combinations

Description

Given two integers n and k, return all possible combinations of k numbers chosen from the range [1, n].

You may return the answer in any order.

Approach

BackTracking

• Initialize two global parameters result (store the final result of combinations) and path (store the current combination).
• Intialize a recursive function with parameters n, k and startIndex (control the elements that can be included in the current combination).
• If the size of path equals to k, which means a combinations is found, add path to result.
• Loop from startIndex to n - (k - path.size()) + 1 (ensures that the loop doesn’t go beyond the maximum possible value for a valid combination with the current elements):
  • add the current loop index to path.
  • Recursively call the function with startIndex + 1
  • Remove the last integer in path to backtrack.

Soltuion

class Solution {
    List<List<Integer>> result = new ArrayList<>();
    List<Integer> path = new ArrayList<>();
    public List<List<Integer>> combine(int n, int k) {
        backTracking(n, k, 1);
        return result;
    }

    private void backTracking(int n, int k, int startIndex) {
        if (path.size() == k) {
            result.add(new ArrayList<>(path));
            return;
        }
        for (int i = startIndex; i <= n - (k - path.size()) + 1; i++) {
            path.add(i);
            backTracking(n, k, i + 1);
            path.remove(path.size() -  1);
        }
    }
}

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Reference: https://programmercarl.com/