[LeetCode] Regular Expression Matching

This problem has a typical solution using Dynamic Programming. We define the state P[i][j] to be true if s[0..i) matches p[0..j) and false otherwise. Then the state equations are:

P[i][j] = P[i - 1][j - 1], if p[j - 1] != '*' && (s[i - 1] == p[j - 1] || p[j - 1] == '.');

P[i][j] = P[i][j - 2], if p[j - 1] == '*' and the pattern repeats for 0 times;

P[i][j] = P[i - 1][j] && (s[i - 1] == p[j - 2] || p[j - 2] == '.'), if p[j - 1] == '*' and the pattern repeats for at least 1 times.

Putting these together, we will have the following code.

class Solution {
public:
bool isMatch(string s, string p) {
int m = s.length(), n = p.length();
vector<vector<bool> > dp(m + 1, vector<bool> (n + 1, false));
dp[0][0] = true;
for (int i = 0; i <= m; i++)
for (int j = 1; j <= n; j++)
if (p[j - 1] == '*')
dp[i][j] = dp[i][j - 2] || (i > 0 && (s[i - 1] == p[j - 2] || p[j - 2] == '.') && dp[i - 1][j]);
else dp[i][j] = i > 0 && dp[i - 1][j - 1] && (s[i - 1] == p[j - 1] || p[j - 1] == '.');
return dp[m]
;
}
};