269. Alien Dictionary

Posted 2021-01-10 sherylwang

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. 

这题看题目就知道是拓扑排序解，但是怎么构建图，以及一些不是字典序的输入要判断，有些corner case要考虑到。

首先输入有可能不是拓扑排序的，一个是有环，如例3，这个在走完拓扑的顺序，如果输出结点和原结点数目不一致，可以判断。另外一种可能是短词排在后面如：[‘err‘, ‘e‘] 这种单纯通过拓扑排序看不出来，所以需要在建图时判断。另外注意我们只是针对有边的情况建图，很多时候有结点无边，所以建完的图key值不一定能完全覆盖结点。所以把所有字母组成的结点单求出来很重要。另外注意组合只有一个单词的情况。代码如下：

class Solution(object):
    def alienOrder(self, words):
        """
        :type words: List[str]
        :rtype: str
        """
        # 可能有环， 每个单词只有一个字符的情况, 不符合字典序的情况，[‘err‘, ‘e‘]
        graph = collections.defaultdict(set)
        nodes = set()
        nodes.update(words[0])
        for i in xrange(1, len(words)):
            diff = 0
            for j in xrange(min(len(words[i-1]), len(words[i]))):
                if words[i-1][j] != words[i][j]:
                    graph[words[i-1][j]].add(words[i][j])
                    diff += 1
                    break    
            if diff == 0 and len(words[i-1]) > len(words[i]):
                return ""
            nodes.update(words[i])
            
        hashmap = collections.defaultdict(int)
        for node in nodes:
            for n in graph[node]:
                hashmap[n] += 1
        
        queue = collections.deque()
        for node in graph:
            if node not in hashmap:
                queue.append(node)
        res = []
        while queue:
            node = queue.popleft()
            res.append(node)
            for n in graph[node]:
                hashmap[n] -= 1
                if hashmap[n] == 0:
                    queue.append(n) 
        #判断是否有环           
        if len(res) != len(nodes):
            res = []
        return "".join(res)