Get Target Number Using Number List and Arithmetic Operations

 

Given a list of numbers and a target number, write a program to determine whether the target number can be calculated by applying "+-*/" operations to the number list? You can assume () is automatically added when necessary.

For example, given {1,2,3,4} and 21, return true. Because (1+2)*(3+4)=21

Analysis

This is a partition problem which can be solved by using depth first search.

Java Solution

public static boolean isReachable(ArrayList<Integer> list, int target) {
	if (list == null || list.size() == 0)
		return false;
 
	int i = 0;
	int j = list.size() - 1;
 
	ArrayList<Integer> results = getResults(list, i, j, target);
 
	for (int num : results) {
		if (num == target) {
			return true;
		}
	}
 
	return false;
}
 
public static ArrayList<Integer> getResults(ArrayList<Integer> list,
		int left, int right, int target) {
	ArrayList<Integer> result = new ArrayList<Integer>();
 
	if (left > right) {
		return result;
	} else if (left == right) {
		result.add(list.get(left));
		return result;
	}
 
	for (int i = left; i < right; i++) {
 
		ArrayList<Integer> result1 = getResults(list, left, i, target);
		ArrayList<Integer> result2 = getResults(list, i + 1, right, target);
 
		for (int x : result1) {
			for (int y : result2) {
				result.add(x + y);
				result.add(x - y);
				result.add(x * y);
				if (y != 0)
					result.add(x / y);
			}
		}
	}
 
	return result;
}

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  • Thanks for sharing this.

  • Ankit Shah

    you don’t need to pass target in the second function:

    public static ArrayList getResults(ArrayList list,int left, int right) {
    .....
    }