problemhardalgorithmsleetcode-1548leetcode 1548leetcode1548

The Most Similar Path in a Graph

HardUpdated: Oct 13, 2025
Practice on:
LeetCode

Problem

We have n cities and m bi-directional roads where roads[i] = [ai, bi] connects city ai with city bi. Each city has a name consisting of exactly three upper-case English letters given in the string array names. Starting at any city x, you can reach any city y where y != x (i.e., the cities and the roads are forming an undirected connected graph).

You will be given a string array targetPath. You should find a path in the graph of the same length and with the minimum edit distance to targetPath.

You need to return the order of the nodes in the path with the minimum edit distance. The path should be of the same length of targetPath and should be valid (i.e., there should be a direct road between ans[i] and ans[i + 1]). If there are multiple answers return any one of them.

The edit distance is defined as follows:

define editDistance(targetPath, myPath) {
	dis := 0
	a := targetPath.length
	b := myPath.length
	if a != b {
		return 1000000000
	}
	for (i:= 0; i < a; i += 1) {
		if targetPath[i] != myPath[i] {
			dis += 1
		}
	}
	return dis
}

Examples

Example 1:

Input: n = 5, roads = [[0,2],[0,3],[1,2],[1,3],[1,4],[2,4]], names = ["ATL","PEK","LAX","DXB","HND"], targetPath = ["ATL","DXB","HND","LAX"]
Output: [0,2,4,2]
Explanation: [0,2,4,2], [0,3,0,2] and [0,3,1,2] are accepted answers.
[0,2,4,2] is equivalent to ["ATL","LAX","HND","LAX"] which has edit distance = 1 with targetPath.
[0,3,0,2] is equivalent to ["ATL","DXB","ATL","LAX"] which has edit distance = 1 with targetPath.
[0,3,1,2] is equivalent to ["ATL","DXB","PEK","LAX"] which has edit distance = 1 with targetPath.

Example 2:

Input: n = 4, roads = [[1,0],[2,0],[3,0],[2,1],[3,1],[3,2]], names = ["ATL","PEK","LAX","DXB"], targetPath = ["ABC","DEF","GHI","JKL","MNO","PQR","STU","VWX"]
Output: [0,1,0,1,0,1,0,1]
Explanation: Any path in this graph has edit distance = 8 with targetPath.

Example 3:

**![](https://fastly.jsdelivr.net/gh/doocs/leetcode@main/solution/1500-1599/1548.The%20Most%20Similar%20Path%20in%20a%20Graph/images/e3.jpg)**
Input: n = 6, roads = [[0,1],[1,2],[2,3],[3,4],[4,5]], names = ["ATL","PEK","LAX","ATL","DXB","HND"], targetPath = ["ATL","DXB","HND","DXB","ATL","LAX","PEK"]
Output: [3,4,5,4,3,2,1]
Explanation: [3,4,5,4,3,2,1] is the only path with edit distance = 0 with targetPath.
It's equivalent to ["ATL","DXB","HND","DXB","ATL","LAX","PEK"]

Constraints:

  • 2 <= n <= 100
  • m == roads.length
  • n - 1 <= m <= (n * (n - 1) / 2)
  • 0 <= ai, bi <= n - 1
  • ai != bi
  • The graph is guaranteed to be connected and each pair of nodes may have at most one direct road.
  • names.length == n
  • names[i].length == 3
  • names[i] consists of upper-case English letters.
  • There can be two cities with the same name.
  • 1 <= targetPath.length <= 100
  • targetPath[i].length == 3
  • targetPath[i] consists of upper-case English letters.

Follow up: If each node can be visited only once in the path, What should you change in your solution?

Solution

Method 1 - Dynamic Programming on Graph (Backward DP)

Intuition

We use dynamic programming to find the path of minimum edit distance. For each position in the targetPath and each city, we keep the minimum edit distance to reach that city at that position, and a parent pointer to reconstruct the path. The backward DP (from last position to first) lets us compute costs using future states.

Approach

  1. Build an adjacency list for the graph.
  2. Initialize dp (size m x n) with large values and parent with -1.
  3. Set dp[m-1][i] = 0 if names[i] == targetPath[m-1] else 1 for all cities i.
  4. For i from m-2 down to 0, for each city u and neighbor v of u, update dp[i][u] using dp[i+1][v] + cost(u,i) where cost(u,i) is 0 if names[u] == targetPath[i] else 1. Store the chosen v in parent[i][u].
  5. Choose the start city with minimum dp[0][city] and reconstruct the path using the parent table.

Complexity

  • ⏰ Time complexity: O(m * n * d) – For each of the m target positions we consider up to n cities and iterate over their neighbors (average degree d, worst-case n).
  • 🧺 Space complexity: O(m * n) – We store dp and parent tables of size m * n.

Code

C++
#include <vector>
#include <string>
#include <algorithm>
using namespace std;

class Solution {
public:
    vector<int> mostSimilar(int n, vector<vector<int>>& roads, vector<string>& names, vector<string>& targetPath) {
        vector<vector<int>> graph(n);
        for (auto &r : roads) {
            graph[r[0]].push_back(r[1]);
            graph[r[1]].push_back(r[0]);
        }
        int m = targetPath.size();
        const int INF = 1000000000;
        vector<vector<int>> dp(m, vector<int>(n, INF));
        vector<vector<int>> parent(m, vector<int>(n, -1));
        for (int i = 0; i < n; ++i)
            dp[m-1][i] = (names[i] == targetPath[m-1] ? 0 : 1);
        for (int i = m-2; i >= 0; --i) {
            for (int u = 0; u < n; ++u) {
                for (int v : graph[u]) {
                    int cost = (names[u] == targetPath[i] ? 0 : 1) + dp[i+1][v];
                    if (cost < dp[i][u]) {
                        dp[i][u] = cost;
                        parent[i][u] = v;
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        int min_cost = INF, start = 0;
        for (int i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
            if (dp[0][i] < min_cost) {
                min_cost = dp[0][i];
                start = i;
            }
        }
        vector<int> path;
        int u = start;
        for (int i = 0; i < m; ++i) {
            path.push_back(u);
            u = parent[i][u];
        }
        return path;
    }
};
Go
package solution

func mostSimilar(n int, roads [][]int, names []string, targetPath []string) []int {
    graph := make([][]int, n)
    for _, r := range roads {
        a, b := r[0], r[1]
        graph[a] = append(graph[a], b)
        graph[b] = append(graph[b], a)
    }
    m := len(targetPath)
    const INF = 1000000000
    dp := make([][]int, m)
    parent := make([][]int, m)
    for i := 0; i < m; i++ {
        dp[i] = make([]int, n)
        parent[i] = make([]int, n)
        for j := 0; j < n; j++ {
            dp[i][j] = INF
            parent[i][j] = -1
        }
    }
    for i := 0; i < n; i++ {
        if names[i] == targetPath[m-1] {
            dp[m-1][i] = 0
        } else {
            dp[m-1][i] = 1
        }
    }
    for i := m - 2; i >= 0; i-- {
        for u := 0; u < n; u++ {
            for _, v := range graph[u] {
                cost := dp[i+1][v]
                if names[u] != targetPath[i] {
                    cost += 1
                }
                if cost < dp[i][u] {
                    dp[i][u] = cost
                    parent[i][u] = v
                }
            }
        }
    }
    minCost := INF
    start := 0
    for i := 0; i < n; i++ {
        if dp[0][i] < minCost {
            minCost = dp[0][i]
            start = i
        }
    }
    path := make([]int, 0, m)
    u := start
    for i := 0; i < m; i++ {
        path = append(path, u)
        u = parent[i][u]
    }
    return path
}
Java
import java.util.*;
class Solution {
    public List<Integer> mostSimilar(int n, int[][] roads, List<String> names, List<String> targetPath) {
        List<List<Integer>> graph = new ArrayList<>();
        for (int i = 0; i < n; ++i) graph.add(new ArrayList<>());
        for (int[] r : roads) {
            graph.get(r[0]).add(r[1]);
            graph.get(r[1]).add(r[0]);
        }
        int m = targetPath.size();
        int INF = 1000000000;
        int[][] dp = new int[m][n];
        int[][] parent = new int[m][n];
        for (int[] row : dp) Arrays.fill(row, INF);
        for (int[] row : parent) Arrays.fill(row, -1);
        for (int i = 0; i < n; ++i)
            dp[m-1][i] = names.get(i).equals(targetPath.get(m-1)) ? 0 : 1;
        for (int i = m-2; i >= 0; --i) {
            for (int u = 0; u < n; ++u) {
                for (int v : graph.get(u)) {
                    int cost = (names.get(u).equals(targetPath.get(i)) ? 0 : 1) + dp[i+1][v];
                    if (cost < dp[i][u]) {
                        dp[i][u] = cost;
                        parent[i][u] = v;
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        int minCost = INF, start = 0;
        for (int i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
            if (dp[0][i] < minCost) {
                minCost = dp[0][i];
                start = i;
            }
        }
        List<Integer> path = new ArrayList<>();
        int u = start;
        for (int i = 0; i < m; ++i) {
            path.add(u);
            u = parent[i][u];
        }
        return path;
    }
}
Kotlin
class Solution {
    fun mostSimilar(n: Int, roads: Array<IntArray>, names: List<String>, targetPath: List<String>): List<Int> {
        val graph = Array(n) { mutableListOf<Int>() }
        for (r in roads) {
            graph[r[0]].add(r[1])
            graph[r[1]].add(r[0])
        }
        val m = targetPath.size
        val INF = 1000000000
        val dp = Array(m) { IntArray(n) { INF } }
        val parent = Array(m) { IntArray(n) { -1 } }
        for (i in 0 until n) dp[m-1][i] = if (names[i] == targetPath[m-1]) 0 else 1
        for (i in m-2 downTo 0) {
            for (u in 0 until n) {
                for (v in graph[u]) {
                    var cost = dp[i+1][v]
                    if (names[u] != targetPath[i]) cost += 1
                    if (cost < dp[i][u]) {
                        dp[i][u] = cost
                        parent[i][u] = v
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        var minCost = INF
        var start = 0
        for (i in 0 until n) if (dp[0][i] < minCost) { minCost = dp[0][i]; start = i }
        val path = ArrayList<Int>(m)
        var u = start
        for (i in 0 until m) {
            path.add(u)
            u = parent[i][u]
        }
        return path
    }
}
Python
from typing import List
class Solution:
    def mostSimilar(self, n: int, roads: List[List[int]], names: List[str], targetPath: List[str]) -> List[int]:
        from collections import defaultdict
        graph = defaultdict(list)
        for a, b in roads:
            graph[a].append(b)
            graph[b].append(a)
        m = len(targetPath)
        INF = 10**9
        dp = [[INF] * n for _ in range(m)]
        parent = [[-1] * n for _ in range(m)]
        for i in range(n):
            dp[m-1][i] = 0 if names[i] == targetPath[m-1] else 1
        for i in range(m-2, -1, -1):
            for u in range(n):
                for v in graph[u]:
                    cost = (0 if names[u] == targetPath[i] else 1) + dp[i+1][v]
                    if cost < dp[i][u]:
                        dp[i][u] = cost
                        parent[i][u] = v
        min_cost, start = min((dp[0][i], i) for i in range(n))
        path = []
        u = start
        for i in range(m):
            path.append(u)
            u = parent[i][u]
        return path
Rust
use std::i32;
pub fn mostSimilar(n: i32, roads: Vec<Vec<i32>>, names: Vec<String>, target_path: Vec<String>) -> Vec<i32> {
    let n = n as usize;
    let m = target_path.len();
    let mut graph = vec![Vec::new(); n];
    for r in &roads {
        graph[r[0] as usize].push(r[1] as usize);
        graph[r[1] as usize].push(r[0] as usize);
    }
    let mut dp = vec![vec![i32::MAX; n]; m];
    let mut parent = vec![vec![-1; n]; m];
    for i in 0..n {
        dp[m-1][i] = if names[i] == target_path[m-1] { 0 } else { 1 };
    }
    for i in (0..m-1).rev() {
        for u in 0..n {
            for &v in &graph[u] {
                let cost = (if names[u] == target_path[i] { 0 } else { 1 }) + dp[i+1][v];
                if cost < dp[i][u] {
                    dp[i][u] = cost;
                    parent[i][u] = v as i32;
                }
            }
        }
    }
    let (mut min_cost, mut start) = (i32::MAX, 0usize);
    for i in 0..n {
        if dp[0][i] < min_cost {
            min_cost = dp[0][i];
            start = i;
        }
    }
    let mut path = Vec::with_capacity(m);
    let mut u = start;
    for i in 0..m {
        path.push(u as i32);
        u = parent[i][u] as usize;
    }
    path
}
TypeScript
function mostSimilar(n: number, roads: number[][], names: string[], targetPath: string[]): number[] {
    const graph: number[][] = Array.from({length: n}, () => []);
    for (const [a, b] of roads) {
        graph[a].push(b);
        graph[b].push(a);
    }
    const m = targetPath.length;
    const INF = 1e9;
    const dp: number[][] = Array.from({length: m}, () => Array(n).fill(INF));
    const parent: number[][] = Array.from({length: m}, () => Array(n).fill(-1));
    for (let i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
        dp[m-1][i] = names[i] === targetPath[m-1] ? 0 : 1;
    }
    for (let i = m-2; i >= 0; --i) {
        for (let u = 0; u < n; ++u) {
            for (const v of graph[u]) {
                const cost = (names[u] === targetPath[i] ? 0 : 1) + dp[i+1][v];
                if (cost < dp[i][u]) {
                    dp[i][u] = cost;
                    parent[i][u] = v;
                }
            }
        }
    }
    let minCost = INF, start = 0;
    for (let i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
        if (dp[0][i] < minCost) {
            minCost = dp[0][i];
            start = i;
        }
    }
    const path: number[] = [];
    let u = start;
    for (let i = 0; i < m; ++i) {
        path.push(u);
        u = parent[i][u];
    }
    return path;
}

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