Given a singly linked list, return a random node's value from the linked list. Each node must have the same probability of being chosen.
Follow up:
What if the linked list is extremely large and its length is unknown to you? Could you solve this efficiently without using extra space?
Example:
// Init a singly linked list [1,2,3]. ListNode head = new ListNode(1); head.next = new ListNode(2); head.next.next = new ListNode(3); Solution solution = new Solution(head); // getRandom() should return either 1, 2, or 3 randomly. Each element should have equal probability of returning. solution.getRandom();如果n-1个元素复合要求,即n-1每个元素取到的概率是1/(n - 1),那么如果保证第n个元素取到的概率是1/n,那么对于前n-1个元素,每个元素取到的概率是1/(n - 1) * (n - 1)/n。一个比较好的讲解:
When I first got this question, I went through some articles, but it is painful for me to understand abstract notations like i, k, m, n, n-1, k+1...
After I read this one: http://blog.jobbole.com/42550/, it comes with a simple example and I understood suddenly, and write the code by myself. I translate it to English, so more people can benefit from it.
Start...
When we read the first node head
, if the stream ListNode
stops here, we can just return the head.val
. The possibility is 1/1
.
When we read the second node, we can decide if we replace the result r
or not. The possibility is 1/2
. So we just generate a random number between 0
and 1
, and check if it is equal to 1
. If it is 1
, replace r
as the value of the current node, otherwise we don't touch r
, so its value is still the value of head.
When we read the third node, now the result r
is one of value in the head or second node. We just decide if we replace the value of r
as the value of current node(third node)
. The possibility of replacing it is 1/3
, namely the possibility of we don't touch r
is 2/3
. So we just generate a random number between 0 ~ 2
, and if the result is 2
we replace r
.
We can continue to do like this until the end of stream ListNode
.
/**
* Definition for singly-linked list.
* public class ListNode {
* int val;
* ListNode next;
* ListNode(int x) { val = x; }
* }
*/
public class Solution {
ListNode head;
Random random;
/** @param head The linked list's head.
Note that the head is guaranteed to be not null, so it contains at least one node. */
public Solution(ListNode head) {
this.head = head;
random = new Random();
}
/** Returns a random node's value. */
public int getRandom() {
ListNode curr = head;
int res = curr.val;
for (int i = 1; curr.next != null; i ++) {
curr = curr.next;
if (random.nextInt(i + 1) == i)
res = curr.val;
}
return res;
}
}
/**
* Your Solution object will be instantiated and called as such:
* Solution obj = new Solution(head);
* int param_1 = obj.getRandom();
*/