Regular Expression Matching Problem

Regular Expression Matching Problem – Given an input string s and a pattern p, implement regular expression matching with support for ‘.’ and ‘*’ where:

‘.’ Matches any single character.​​​​
‘*’ Matches zero or more of the preceding element.
The matching should cover the entire input string (not partial).

Example 1:

Input: s = “aa”, p = “a”
Output: false
Explanation: “a” does not match the entire string “aa”.

Example 2:

Input: s = “aa”, p = “a”

Output: true

Explanation: ” means zero or more of the preceding element, ‘a’. Therefore, by repeating ‘a’ once, it becomes “aa”.

Example 3:

Input: s = “ab”, p = “.”

Output: true

Explanation: “.” means “zero or more (*) of any character (.)”.

Regular Expression Matching Problem Solution

Problem Solution In Python

class Solution:
    def isMatch(self, s, p):
        matches = [[False for j in range(len(s) + 1)] for i in range(len(p) + 1)]
        matches[0][0] = True
        for i in range(2, len(p) + 1):
            if p[i - 1] == "*": 
                matches[i][0] = matches[i - 2][0]
        for i in range(1, len(p) + 1):
            for j in range(1, len(s) + 1):
                if p[i -1] == s[j - 1] or p[i - 1] == ".":
                    matches[i][j] = matches[i - 1][j - 1]
                elif p[i - 1] == "*": 
                    if p[i - 2] != s[j - 1] and p[i - 2] != ".":
                        matches[i][j] = matches[i - 2][j]
                    else:
                        matches[i][j] = matches[i - 2][j] or matches[i -1][j] or matches[i][j - 1] 
        return matches[-1][-1]

Problem Solution In Java

public boolean isMatch(String s, String p) {
        if (p == null || p.length() == 0) return (s == null || s.length() == 0);
        
        boolean dp[][] = new boolean[s.length()+1][p.length()+1];
        dp[0][0] = true;
        for (int j=2; j<=p.length(); j++) {
            dp[0][j] = p.charAt(j-1) == '*' && dp[0][j-2]; 
        }
        
        for (int j=1; j<=p.length(); j++) {
            for (int i=1; i<=s.length(); i++) {
                if (p.charAt(j-1) == s.charAt(i-1) || p.charAt(j-1) == '.') 
                    dp[i][j] = dp[i-1][j-1];
                else if(p.charAt(j-1) == '*')
                    dp[i][j] = dp[i][j-2] || ((s.charAt(i-1) == p.charAt(j-2) || p.charAt(j-2) == '.') && dp[i-1][j]); 
            }
        }
        return dp[s.length()][p.length()];
    }

Problem Solution In C++

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

Problem Solution In C

bool isMatch(char* s, char* p) {
    for (;*p && *(p + 1) != '*'; ++s, ++p)
        if (!*s || (*p != *s && *p != '.'))
            return false;
        
    if (!*p)
        return *s == 0;
    
    if (*s && (*s == *p || *p == '.'))
        return isMatch(s, p + 2) || isMatch(s + 1, p);
    else
        return isMatch(s, p + 2);
}