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10.02. Group Anagrams

Description

Write a method to sort an array of strings so that all the anagrams are in the same group.

Note: This problem is slightly different from the original one the book.

Example:


Input: ["eat", "tea", "tan", "ate", "nat", "bat"],

Output:

[

  ["ate","eat","tea"],

  ["nat","tan"],

  ["bat"]

]

Notes:

  • All inputs will be in lowercase.
  • The order of your output does not matter.

Solutions

Solution 1: Hash Table

  1. Traverse the string array, sort each string according to character lexicographical order, and get a new string.
  2. Use the new string as key and [str] as value, and store them in the hash table (HashMap<String, List<String>>).
  3. When the same key is encountered in subsequent traversals, add it to the corresponding value.

Take strs = ["eat", "tea", "tan", "ate", "nat", "bat"] as an example. At the end of the traversal, the state of the hash table is:

key value
"aet" ["eat", "tea", "ate"]
"ant" ["tan", "nat"]
"abt" ["bat"]

Finally, return the value list of the hash table.

The time complexity is $O(n\times k\times \log k)$, where $n$ and $k$ are the length of the string array and the maximum length of the string, respectively.

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class Solution:
    def groupAnagrams(self, strs: List[str]) -> List[List[str]]:
        d = defaultdict(list)
        for s in strs:
            k = ''.join(sorted(s))
            d[k].append(s)
        return list(d.values())

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class Solution {
    public List<List<String>> groupAnagrams(String[] strs) {
        Map<String, List<String>> d = new HashMap<>();
        for (String s : strs) {
            char[] t = s.toCharArray();
            Arrays.sort(t);
            String k = String.valueOf(t);
            d.computeIfAbsent(k, key -> new ArrayList<>()).add(s);
        }
        return new ArrayList<>(d.values());
    }
}

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class Solution {
public:
    vector<vector<string>> groupAnagrams(vector<string>& strs) {
        unordered_map<string, vector<string>> d;
        for (auto& s : strs) {
            string k = s;
            sort(k.begin(), k.end());
            d[k].emplace_back(s);
        }
        vector<vector<string>> ans;
        for (auto& [_, v] : d) ans.emplace_back(v);
        return ans;
    }
};

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func groupAnagrams(strs []string) (ans [][]string) {
    d := map[string][]string{}
    for _, s := range strs {
        t := []byte(s)
        sort.Slice(t, func(i, j int) bool { return t[i] < t[j] })
        k := string(t)
        d[k] = append(d[k], s)
    }
    for _, v := range d {
        ans = append(ans, v)
    }
    return
}

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function groupAnagrams(strs: string[]): string[][] {
    const d: Map<string, string[]> = new Map();
    for (const s of strs) {
        const k = s.split('').sort().join('');
        if (!d.has(k)) {
            d.set(k, []);
        }
        d.get(k)!.push(s);
    }
    return Array.from(d.values());
}

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class Solution {
    func groupAnagrams(_ strs: [String]) -> [[String]] {
        var d = [String: [String]]()
        for s in strs {
            let t = String(s.sorted())
            d[t, default: []].append(s)
        }
        return Array(d.values)
    }
}

Solution 2: Counting

We can also change the sorting part in Solution 1 to counting, that is, use the characters in each string $s$ and their occurrence times as key, and the string $s$ as value to store in the hash table.

The time complexity is $O(n\times (k + C))$. Where $n$ and $k$ are the length of the string array and the maximum length of the string, respectively, and $C$ is the size of the character set. In this problem, $C = 26$.

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class Solution:
    def groupAnagrams(self, strs: List[str]) -> List[List[str]]:
        d = defaultdict(list)
        for s in strs:
            cnt = [0] * 26
            for c in s:
                cnt[ord(c) - ord('a')] += 1
            d[tuple(cnt)].append(s)
        return list(d.values())

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class Solution {
    public List<List<String>> groupAnagrams(String[] strs) {
        Map<String, List<String>> d = new HashMap<>();
        for (String s : strs) {
            int[] cnt = new int[26];
            for (int i = 0; i < s.length(); ++i) {
                ++cnt[s.charAt(i) - 'a'];
            }
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
            for (int i = 0; i < 26; ++i) {
                if (cnt[i] > 0) {
                    sb.append((char) ('a' + i)).append(cnt[i]);
                }
            }
            String k = sb.toString();
            d.computeIfAbsent(k, key -> new ArrayList<>()).add(s);
        }
        return new ArrayList<>(d.values());
    }
}

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class Solution {
public:
    vector<vector<string>> groupAnagrams(vector<string>& strs) {
        unordered_map<string, vector<string>> d;
        for (auto& s : strs) {
            int cnt[26] = {0};
            for (auto& c : s) ++cnt[c - 'a'];
            string k;
            for (int i = 0; i < 26; ++i) {
                if (cnt[i]) {
                    k += 'a' + i;
                    k += to_string(cnt[i]);
                }
            }
            d[k].emplace_back(s);
        }
        vector<vector<string>> ans;
        for (auto& [_, v] : d) ans.emplace_back(v);
        return ans;
    }
};

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func groupAnagrams(strs []string) (ans [][]string) {
    d := map[[26]int][]string{}
    for _, s := range strs {
        cnt := [26]int{}
        for _, c := range s {
            cnt[c-'a']++
        }
        d[cnt] = append(d[cnt], s)
    }
    for _, v := range d {
        ans = append(ans, v)
    }
    return
}

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