cracking_the_safe

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753. Cracking the Safe (Hard)

There is a box protected by a password. The password is n digits, where each letter can be one of the first k digits 0, 1, ..., k-1.

You can keep inputting the password, the password will automatically be matched against the last n digits entered.

For example, assuming the password is "345", I can open it when I type "012345", but I enter a total of 6 digits.

Please return any string of minimum length that is guaranteed to open the box after the entire string is inputted.

Example 1:

Input: n = 1, k = 2
Output: "01"
Note: "10" will be accepted too.

Example 2:

Input: n = 2, k = 2
Output: "00110"
Note: "01100", "10011", "11001" will be accepted too.

Note:

1. n will be in the range [1, 4].
2. k will be in the range [1, 10].
3. k^n will be at most 4096.

Related Topics

[Depth-first Search] [Math]

Hints

Hint 1

We can think of this problem as the problem of finding an Euler path (a path visiting every edge exactly once) on the following graph: there are $$k^{n-1}$$ nodes with each node having $$k$$ edges. It turns out this graph always has an Eulerian circuit (path starting where it ends.)

We should visit each node in "post-order" so as to not get stuck in the graph prematurely.