Solution: Unique Paths III
Explore how to implement a backtracking algorithm to count all unique four-directional paths in a grid from a start to end cell while visiting each empty square exactly once. Understand how to mark visited cells in-place, recursively explore valid directions, and backtrack effectively to discover all possible paths. This lesson helps you develop key problem-solving skills for similar grid-based coding interview problems.
We'll cover the following...
Statement
You are given a grid, where each cell, grid[i][j], can have one of the following values:
1indicates the starting point. There is exactly one such square.2marks the ending point. There is exactly one such square.0represents empty squares that can be walked over.-1represents obstacles that cannot be crossed.
Your task is to return the total number of unique four-directional paths from the starting square (1) to the ending square (2), such that every empty square is visited exactly once during the walk.
Constraints:
grid.lengthgrid[i].length...