LeetCode 6: ZigZag Conversion

ZigZag Conversion

The string “PAYPALISHIRING” is written in a zigzag pattern on a given number of rows like this: (you may want to display this pattern in a fixed font for better legibility)

And then read line by line: “PAHNAPLSIIGYIR”.
Write the code that will take a string and make this conversion given a number of rows:

string convert(string s, int numRows);

convert(“PAYPALISHIRING”, 3) should return “PAHNAPLSIIGYIR”.

解题思路

思路一：比较直观的解法是用一个字符串数组 words[numRows] 来存储每一行，最后把numRows个字符串拼接起来就是最终结果。通过观察ZigZag的结构可知，每次向下循环numRows，斜角线循环nRows-2(减去首尾两个端点)。代码如下：

class Solution {
public:
    string convert(string s, int numRows) {
        string words[numRows];

        int i = 0, len = s.length();
        while(i < len) {
            // 向下循环 numRows 次
            for (int j = 0; i < len && j < numRows; ++j) words[j] += s[i++];

            // 斜角线循环 numRows - 2 次
            for (int j = numRows - 2; i < len && j > 0; --j) words[j] += s[i++];
        }

        // 拼接
        string result;
        for (int i = 0; i < numRows; ++i) {
            result += words[i];
        }
        return result;
    }
};

思路二：每一行的重复周期是 2 * nRows - 2；除了首行和末行之外的其他行还包含一个距离本周期起始字符距离为 2 * nRows - 2 - 2 * i 的字符。如下图所示：

代码如下：

class Solution {
public:
    string convert(string s, int numRows) {
        if (numRows < 2) return s;

        string result;
        for (int i = 0;i < numRows; ++i) {
            for (int j = i; j < s.length(); j += 2 * (nRows - 1)) {
                result.push_back(s[j]);
                if (i > 0 && i < nRows - 1) {
                    if (j + 2 * (nRows - i - 1) < s.length())
                        result.push_back(s[j + 2 * (nRows - i - 1)]);
                }
            }
        }
        return result;
    }
};