212. Word Search II.java

// Approach 1: Backtracking with Trie
class TrieNode {
  // T(O): O(M(4*3^(L-1)), M is the number of cells in the board and L is the maximum length of words.
  // S(O): O(N), where N is total number of letters in the dictionary
  HashMap<Character, TrieNode> children = new HashMap<Character, TrieNode>();
  String word = null;
  public TrieNode() {}
}

class Solution {
  char[][] _board = null;
  ArrayList<String> _result = new ArrayList<String>();

  public List<String> findWords(char[][] board, String[] words) {

    // Step 1). Construct the Trie
    TrieNode root = new TrieNode();
    for (String word : words) {
      TrieNode node = root;

      for (Character letter : word.toCharArray()) {
        if (node.children.containsKey(letter)) {
          node = node.children.get(letter);
        } else {
          TrieNode newNode = new TrieNode();
          node.children.put(letter, newNode);
          node = newNode;
        }
      }
      node.word = word;  // store words in Trie
    }

    this._board = board;
    // Step 2). Backtracking starting for each cell in the board
    for (int row = 0; row < board.length; ++row) {
      for (int col = 0; col < board[row].length; ++col) {
        if (root.children.containsKey(board[row][col])) {
          backtracking(row, col, root);
        }
      }
    }

    return this._result;
  }
  
  private void backtracking(int row, int col, TrieNode parent) {
    Character letter = this._board[row][col];
    TrieNode currNode = parent.children.get(letter);

    // check if there is any match
    if (currNode.word != null) {
      this._result.add(currNode.word);
      currNode.word = null;
    }

    // mark the current letter before the EXPLORATION
    this._board[row][col] = '#';

    // explore neighbor cells in around-clock directions: up, right, down, left
    int[] rowOffset = {-1, 0, 1, 0};
    int[] colOffset = {0, 1, 0, -1};
    for (int i = 0; i < 4; ++i) {
      int newRow = row + rowOffset[i];
      int newCol = col + colOffset[i];
      if (newRow < 0 || newRow >= this._board.length || newCol < 0
          || newCol >= this._board[0].length) {
        continue;
      }
      if (currNode.children.containsKey(this._board[newRow][newCol])) {
        backtracking(newRow, newCol, currNode);
      }
    }

    // End of EXPLORATION, restore the original letter in the board.
    this._board[row][col] = letter;

    // Optimization: incrementally remove the leaf nodes
    if (currNode.children.isEmpty()) {
      parent.children.remove(letter);
    }
  }
}