Paint Fence
要点:
- 这题是求number of ways,如果是相邻不相同颜色,那么就trivial了:k*(k-1)^(n-1)。所以这里no more than two adjacent fence posts就是不能连续出现3个相同颜色的。
- 注意这题的解序列都是连续的,所以dp表示的就是以当前fence结束的情况。
- 这题要用两个dp variables:same:表示最近两个posts是相同颜色,diff:表示最近两个posts是不同color。why?首先这两种情况是exclusive的,所以结果是same+diff。另外由于三个不相连,所以下一个diff是依赖于上一步的same和diff的,而下一步same就是上一步的diff。这样就有了递推式了。
- 为什么要分开而不能只优化dp[i]?dp[i-2]/dp[i-1]的情况是不明的,没法确定当前的颜色。
- 以前还见过道min cost的题,这题只是相邻的不同色。因为每种颜色的cost的非对称性,dp需要记录每种颜色上一步的min cost,从而再得到下一步。同样,因为结果是连续的,所以最后就是几种颜色中最小的那个 http://pastebin.com/PS4RPzLY
- xrange(2, n) or xrange(3, n+1)都可以
- python的same, diff可以同时更新,右边的全是old值,没有更新顺序依赖
# There is a fence with n posts, each post can be painted with one of the k colors.
# You have to paint all the posts such that no more than two adjacent fence posts have the same color.
# Return the total number of ways you can paint the fence.
# Note:
# n and k are non-negative integers.
# Hide Company Tags Google
# Hide Tags Dynamic Programming
# Hide Similar Problems (E) House Robber (M) House Robber II (M) Paint House (H) Paint House II
class Solution(object):
def numWays(self, n, k):
"""
:type n: int
:type k: int
:rtype: int
"""
if n==0 or k==0: return 0
if n==1: return k
same, diff = k, k*(k-1)
for i in xrange(2, n): # error: not 3 but 2
same, diff = diff, same*(k-1)+diff*(k-1)
return same+diff
sol = Solution()
assert sol.numWays(3, 2)==6
assert sol.numWays(3, 1)==0
assert sol.numWays(2, 2)==4