Word Ladder (Leetcode 127) Solution - Google Interview Question

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A transformation sequence from word beginWord to word endWord using a dictionary wordList is a sequence of words beginWord -> s1 -> s2 -> ... -> sk such that:

  • Every adjacent pair of words differs by a single letter.
  • Every si for 1 <= i <= k is in wordList. Note that beginWord does not need to be in wordList.
  • sk == endWord

Given two words, beginWord and endWord, and a dictionary wordList, return the number of words in the shortest transformation sequence from beginWord to endWord, or 0 if no such sequence exists.

Example 1:

Input: beginWord = "hit", endWord = "cog", wordList = ["hot","dot","dog","lot","log","cog"]
Output: 5
Explanation: One shortest transformation sequence is "hit" -> "hot" -> "dot" -> "dog" -> cog", which is 5 words long.

Example 2:

Input: beginWord = "hit", endWord = "cog", wordList = ["hot","dot","dog","lot","log"]
Output: 0
Explanation: The endWord "cog" is not in wordList, therefore there is no valid transformation sequence.

Constraints:

  • 1 <= beginWord.length <= 10
  • endWord.length == beginWord.length
  • 1 <= wordList.length <= 5000
  • wordList[i].length == beginWord.length
  • beginWord, endWord, and wordList[i] consist of lowercase English letters.
  • beginWord != endWord
  • All the words in wordList are unique.

Solution:

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/**
 * The logic is to preprocess the wordList in the form of *
 * Eg:WordList: ["hot","dot","dog","lot","log","cog"]
 * The Preprocessed output will have the following map. This is nothing but the adjacencyList for the graph.
 * {do*=[dot, dog], d*g=[dog], c*g=[cog], ho*=[hot], *og=[dog, log, cog], h*t=[hot],
 * lo*=[lot, log], l*t=[lot], l*g=[log],  *ot=[hot, dot, lot], d*t=[dot], co*=[cog]}
 **/
class Solution {
    public int ladderLength(String beginWord, String end, List<String> wordList) {
        Map<String, List<String>> map = preProcess(wordList);
        System.out.println(map);
        //BFS from beginWord.
        Set<String> visited = new HashSet<>();
        Queue<String[]> q = new LinkedList<>();
        q.add(new String[]{beginWord, "0"});

        Integer res = null;
        while (q.size() != 0) {
            String[] node = q.poll();
            String cur = node[0];

            int level = Integer.parseInt(node[1]);

            if (cur.equals(end)) {
                res = level;
                break;
            }

            if (visited.contains(cur)) {
                continue;
            }

            visited.add(cur);

            for (int i = 0; i < cur.length(); i++) {
                String temp = cur.substring(0, i) + "*" + cur.substring(i + 1, cur.length());
                List<String> list = map.get(temp);
                // System.out.println(cur + ":" + temp +  ":" + list);
                if (list != null) {
                    for (String s : list) {
                        q.add(new String[]{s, (level + 1) + ""});
                    }
                }

            }

        }

        return res == null ? 0 : res + 1;
    }

    Map<String, List<String>> preProcess(List<String> words) {
        Map<String, List<String>> map = new HashMap<>();
        for (String w : words) {
            for (int i = 0; i < w.length(); i++) {
                String temp = w.substring(0, i) + "*" + w.substring(i + 1, w.length());
                List<String> list = map.getOrDefault(temp, new ArrayList<>());
                list.add(w);
                map.put(temp, list);
            }
        }
        return map;
    }

}
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