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16 views9 pages

Combinations

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lonesome.rar
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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1/2/25, 12:17 PM Combinations

AfterAcademy

Admin AfterAcademy
8 Aug 2020

Combinations - Interview Problem

Difficulty: Medium

Asked in: Amazon, Adobe

Understanding The Problem


Problem Description

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1/2/25, 12:17 PM Combinations

Given two integers n and k , write a program to return all possible


combinations of k numbers out of 1 2 3 ... n .

Problem Note

Elements in a combination must be in a non-descending order.

The combinations themselves must be sorted in ascending order, i.e.,


the combination with the smallest first element should be printed first.

The combination [1,2] is valid but [2,1] is invalid as 2>1 .

Example 1

Input: n = 3, k = 2
Output:
[
[1,2],
[1,3],
[2,3]
]

Example 2

Input: n = 5, k = 3
Output:
[
[1 2 3],
[1 2 4],
[1 2 5],
[1 3 4],
[1 3 5],
[1 4 5],
[2 3 4],
[2 3 5],
[2 4 5],
[3 4 5]
]

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1/2/25, 12:17 PM Combinations

You may try this problem here.

Solution
This problem is a famous backtracking problem.

You might have understood what’s happening while looking over the
examples. Let’s take an example, given k is 2, that means we have to
generate combinations of length 2 and the set of numbers we have are from
1 to n, in this case, n is 4. We will solve this problem by using a backtracking
approach.

The call stack will be:

N = 4, K = 2.
backtrack(1, [])
backtrack(2, [1])
backtrack(3, [1, 2])
backtrack(4, [1, 3])
backtrack(5, [1, 4])
backtrack(3, [2])
backtrack(4, [2, 3])
backtrack(5, [2, 4])
backtrack(4, [3])
backtrack(5, [3, 4])
backtrack(5, [4])

If you will look at the above stack, you’ll see how the functions can be
calling itself until the current combination array length becomes equal
to k . As soon as it touches the length k , it starts to backtrack to the
previous state. If there are not enough elements in the current
combination , it will run through fisrt~N and append all the element num
to the combination , and set the first to num+1 .

In other words, if we have used 3, we will not use 3 and the number below 3
anymore.
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1/2/25, 12:17 PM Combinations

We will create a result array to store the generated combinations, we can


append the combinations each time its length becomes equal to k . While
backtracking or going to the previous state, we will pop out the last element
of the current combination array. The popped out element represents,
we have checked all the possible combinations with that prefix array and we
are ready to explore the possible combinations with elements greater than
popped element.

Solution Steps

Create a backtrack function, which will search for all possible


combinations of length k from the set of numbers 1 to n.

Pass a parameter start in the backtrack function which will tell the
backtrack function from where to look for the elements.

For each value of i in the range start to n , append i in the


current combination sequence and look for the rest of the elements
that needed to be filled in the curr_comb . If all possible
combinations have been explored, then pop out that i and explore
the rest possible sequences

Whenever the curr_comb sequence becomes the length of k ,


append it to the final combs array.

Recursive Pseudo Code

int[][] combine(int n, int k) {


int[][] combs
int[] curr_comb
backtrack(combs, curr_comb, 1, n, k);
return combs;
}
void backtrack(int[][] combs, int[] curr_comb, int start, int n, int k) {
if(k is 0) {
combs.add(curr_comb)
return
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1/2/25, 12:17 PM Combinations

}
for(int i=start to i<=n) {
curr_comb.add(i)
backtrack(combs, curr_comb, i+1, n, k-1)
curr_comb.remove(curr_comb.size() - 1)
}
}

The above approach could also be molded into an iterative approach.

The idea is to iteratively generate combinations for all lengths from 1 to k.


We start with a list of all numbers <= n as combinations for k == 1 .
When we have all combinations of length k-1 , we can get the new ones
for a length k with trying to add to each one all elements that are <= n
and greater than the last element of a current combination.

Iterative Pseudo Code

int[][] combine(int n, int k) {


if (k is 0 or n == 0 or k > n)
return []
int[][] combs
for (int i = 1 to i <= n)
combs.add([i])
for (int i = 2 to i <= k) {
int[][] newCombs
for (int j = i to j <= n) {
for (int[] comb in combs) {
if (comb[comb.size()-1] < j) {
newComb = comb
newComb.add(j)
newCombs.add(newComb)
}
}
}
combs = newCombs
}
return combs
}

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1/2/25, 12:17 PM Combinations

Complexity Analysis

Time Complexity: O(n!/k!(n-k)!), or mathematically n choose k .

Recursive Space Complexity: O(n!/k!(n-k)!)

Iterative Space Complexity: O(n²)

Critical ideas to Think!

Do you think that the time complexity for iterative and recursive
approaches would be the same?

Can you draw a recursive tree diagram following the recursive approach
for Example 2 mentioned above?

In curr_comb.remove(curr_comb.size() — 1) Why do we
remove the last one?

Considering Example 1, if you want to get [1,3] after you had got [1,2], there
is no need to create another list, you just need to remove ‘2’— that is the
curr_comb.size()-1 .

How did we "backtrack" in this approach?

Can you mathematically explain the time complexity?

Suggested Problems To Solve


Combination sum

Permutations

Sudoku Solver

Rat in a maze

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1/2/25, 12:17 PM Combinations

If you have any more approaches or you find an error/bug in the above
solutions, please comment down below.

Happy Coding!

Enjoy Algorithms!

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number could represent. This is a popular This famous backtracking problem has
coding interview question based on previously been asked in Adobe, Amazon,
backtracking and recursive approach. Facebook.

Admin AfterAcademy Admin AfterAcademy


12 Oct 2020 18 Jul 2020

https://afteracademy.com/blog/combinations/ 7/9
1/2/25, 12:17 PM Combinations

Generate Parentheses
Given n pairs of parentheses, write a
program to generate all combinations of
balanced parentheses. You have to return a
string array containing all possible cases.

Admin AfterAcademy
18 Jul 2020

Connect With Your Mentors

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Founder | IIT-BHU | 10 Yrs Exp. Founder | IIT-BHU | 10 Yrs Exp.

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