Solution: Decode Ways

Understand how to decode digit-only strings into all possible alphabetic combinations using dynamic programming. Explore a step-by-step approach that breaks down the problem, leverages subproblem storage to avoid recomputation, and optimizes space complexity. Learn to implement this efficient solution in Python to prepare for coding interviews.

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Statement
Solution

Statement

Given a string that has only positive digits, your task is to decode the string and determine the number of possible ways to decode it.

Consider the input string as an encoded message, where each digit in the string represents an alphabet from A to Z. For reference, let’s look at the mapping below:

"1" represents "A"

"2" represents "B"

"3" represents "C"

$\dots$

"26" represents "Z"

How to perform the decode operation?

To decode an encoded message, we have to check whether or not each digit in the string can be mapped onto the mapping above. There can be multiple ways to decode a string.

For example, the string "231012" can be decoded in the following ways:

Option 1 $\rightarrow$ "2", "3", "10", "1", "2" $\rightarrow$ "B", "C", "J", "A", "B"
Option 2 $\rightarrow$ ...