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hardDSA

How do you solve the word ladder problem?

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01

Understand the problem

Explain shortest transformation via BFS.

graphsbfs
02

Attempt it yourself

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03

Study the solution

Treat each word as a node with edges to words differing by one letter; the shortest transformation is BFS from start to end. Generate neighbors by trying every position × every letter, checking the word set. Bidirectional BFS speeds it up.

Solution ready — 2 min read

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04

Read the code

BFS over one-letter edits
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from collections import deque

def ladder_length(begin, end, word_list):
    words = set(word_list)
    if end not in words:
        return 0
    q = deque([(begin, 1)])
    seen = {begin}
    while q:
        word, steps = q.popleft()
        if word == end:
            return steps
        for i in range(len(word)):
            for c in 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz':
                nxt = word[:i] + c + word[i + 1:]
                if nxt in words and nxt not in seen:
                    seen.add(nxt)
                    q.append((nxt, steps + 1))
    return 0


# --- demo ---
print(ladder_length('hit', 'cog', ['hot', 'dot', 'dog', 'lot', 'log', 'cog']))   # 5
05

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