269. Alien Dictionary

问题描述：

There is a new alien language which uses the latin alphabet. However, the order among letters are unknown to you. You receive a list of non-empty words from the dictionary, where words are sorted lexicographically by the rules of this new language. Derive the order of letters in this language.

Example 1:

Input:
[
  "wrt",
  "wrf",
  "er",
  "ett",
  "rftt"
]

Output: "wertf"

Example 2:

Input:
[
  "z",
  "x"
]

Output: "zx"

Example 3:

Input:
[
  "z",
  "x",
  "z"
] 

Output: "" 

Explanation: The order is invalid, so return "".

Note:

1. You may assume all letters are in lowercase.
2. You may assume that if a is a prefix of b, then a must appear before b in the given dictionary.
3. If the order is invalid, return an empty string.
4. There may be multiple valid order of letters, return any one of them is fine.

 

解题思路：

给了我们一个字典，字典是按照字母先后顺序排序的。

照这一点，我们可以寻找字母与字母之间的关系。

可以根据字典构建一个图，每个字母都是一个节点, 在前面的字母指向在后面的字母，这样可以构成一个有向图，那么我们要做的就是求这个图的拓扑排序。

1.构建图：

对字典中出现的每一个字母，初始化它的入度为0.

对字典中的每一个单词，我们用它与它后面一个单词相比较，找到第一个不相等的字母，将words[i][j]指向words[i+1][j]（加入到邻接链表中），同时增加words[i+1][j]的入度。

2.拓扑排序：

现将入度为0的放入队列中

取出队首元素放入返回字符串中，根据邻接链表将其邻接点的入度减1，若此时邻接点的入度为0，则将该点加入队列。

3.检查是否有环：

若返回字符串的长度不等于indegree中节点的长度，则说明有环，清空ret。

 

代码：

class Solution {
public:
    string alienOrder(vector<string>& words) {
        string ret;
        unordered_map<char, vector<char>> graph;
        unordered_map<char, int> in_degree;
        for(auto w : words){
            for(auto c : w){
                in_degree[c] = 0;
            }
        }
        for(int i = 0; i < words.size()-1; i++){
            if(words[i][0] != words[i+1][0]){
                graph[words[i][0]].push_back(words[i+1][0]);
                in_degree[words[i+1][0]]++;
            }else{
                int j = 0;
                int len = min(words[i].size(), words[i+1].size());
                while(j < len && words[i][j] == words[i+1][j]) j++;
                if(j != len){
                    graph[words[i][j]].push_back(words[i+1][j]);
                    in_degree[words[i+1][j]]++;
                }
            }
        }
        queue<char> q;
        for(auto p : in_degree){
            if(p.second == 0) q.push(p.first);
        }
        while(!q.empty()){
            char cur = q.front();
            q.pop();
            ret.push_back(cur);
            if(graph.count(cur)){
                for(auto c : graph[cur]){
                    in_degree[c]--;
                    if(in_degree[c] == 0) q.push(c);
                }
            }
        }
        if(ret.size() != in_degree.size()) ret.clear();
        return ret;
        
    }
};