LeetCode - Generate Parentheses

less than 1 minute read

Problem description

description

Given n pairs of parentheses, write a function to generate all combinations of well-formed parentheses.

For example, given n = 3, a solution set is:

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[
  "((()))",
  "(()())",
  "(())()",
  "()(())",
  "()()()"
]

Analysis

Basic idea is to use DFS to find all the valid combination.

Here’s the code:

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public class GenerateParentheses {

  public List<String> generateParenthesis(int n) {
    List<String> res = new ArrayList<>();
    char[] path = new char[n * 2];

    dfs(res, 0, path, 0);

    return res;
  }

  void dfs(List<String> res, int index, char[] path, int value) {
    if (value < 0) {
      return;
    }

    if (index == path.length) {
      if (value == 0) {
        res.add(new String(path));
      }

      return;
    }

    path[index] = '(';
    dfs(res, index + 1, path, value + 1);

    path[index] = ')';
    dfs(res, index + 1, path, value - 1);
  }
}

value indicate that how many left bracket remain, if value < 0 means it’s not a valid path.

What to improve