Intersection of two linked lists
Given the heads of two singly linked-lists headA and headB, return the node at which the two lists intersect. If the two linked lists have no intersection at all, return null.
class Solution:
# @param two ListNodes
# @return the intersected ListNode
def getIntersectionNode(self, headA, headB):
if headA is None or headB is None:
return None
pa = headA # 2 pointers
pb = headB
while pa is not pb:
# if either pointer hits the end, switch head and continue the second traversal,
# if not hit the end, just move on to next
pa = headB if pa is None else pa.next
pb = headA if pb is None else pb.next
return pa # only 2 ways to get out of the loop, they meet or the both hit the end=None
# the idea is if you switch head, the possible difference between length would be countered.
# On the second traversal, they either hit or miss.
# if they meet, pa or pb would be the node we are looking for,
# if they didn't meet, they will hit the end at the same iteration, pa == pb == None, return either one of them is the same,None
public ListNode getIntersectionNode(ListNode headA, ListNode headB) {
//boundary check
if(headA == null || headB == null) return null;
ListNode a = headA;
ListNode b = headB;
//if a & b have different len, then we will stop the loop after second iteration
while( a != b){
//for the end of first iteration, we just reset the pointer to the head of another linkedlist
a = a == null? headB : a.next;
b = b == null? headA : b.next;
}
return a;
}
Posted by Jamie Meyer a month ago