79. Word Search

Problem

Given a 2D board and a word, find if the word exists in the grid.

The word can be constructed from letters of sequentially adjacent cell, where "adjacent" cells are those horizontally or vertically neighboring. The same letter cell may not be used more than once.

Example:

board =
[
  ['A','B','C','E'],
  ['S','F','C','S'],
  ['A','D','E','E']
]

Given word = "ABCCED", return true.
Given word = "SEE", return true.
Given word = "ABCB", return false.

Problem Summary

Given a 2D grid and a word, find whether the word exists in the grid. The word must be constructed in letter order from letters in adjacent cells, where "adjacent" cells are those that are horizontally or vertically neighboring. The same letter cell may not be used more than once.

Solution Approach

Starting from any point on the board, perform DFS searches in the 4 directions respectively. Return true once all letters of the word have been found; otherwise return false.

Code


package leetcode

var dir = [][]int{
	[]int{-1, 0},
	[]int{0, 1},
	[]int{1, 0},
	[]int{0, -1},
}

func exist(board [][]byte, word string) bool {
	visited := make([][]bool, len(board))
	for i := 0; i < len(visited); i++ {
		visited[i] = make([]bool, len(board[0]))
	}
	for i, v := range board {
		for j := range v {
			if searchWord(board, visited, word, 0, i, j) {
				return true
			}
		}
	}
	return false
}

func isInBoard(board [][]byte, x, y int) bool {
	return x >= 0 && x < len(board) && y >= 0 && y < len(board[0])
}

func searchWord(board [][]byte, visited [][]bool, word string, index, x, y int) bool {
	if index == len(word)-1 {
		return board[x][y] == word[index]
	}
	if board[x][y] == word[index] {
		visited[x][y] = true
		for i := 0; i < 4; i++ {
			nx := x + dir[i][0]
			ny := y + dir[i][1]
			if isInBoard(board, nx, ny) && !visited[nx][ny] && searchWord(board, visited, word, index+1, nx, ny) {
				return true
			}
		}
		visited[x][y] = false
	}
	return false
}