Expert · Dynamic programming · 212 of 264
Edit distance
The edit distance is the smallest number of single-letter insertions, deletions and replacements that turn one word into another. Words have up to 500 letters.
Input: two words, one per line. Output: their edit distance.
Examples
Input
kitten sitting
Output
3
Input
flaw lawn
Output
2
Input
same same
Output
0
2 more tests check other inputs when you press Check.
Stuck? The idea behind dynamic programming
Break the problem into smaller ones that repeat, and keep each answer in a table so it is worked out only once.
Decide what one cell of the table means ("the best total using the first i items"), how it follows from earlier cells, and where it starts.
n = 10
ways = [0] * (n + 1)
ways[0] = 1
for i in range(1, n + 1):
ways[i] = ways[i - 1] + (ways[i - 2] if i >= 2 else 0)
print(ways[n]) # climbing 10 stairs, 1 or 2 at a timeWatch for: Fill the table in an order where every cell it needs is already filled.