Question
There are a total of n courses you have to take, labeled from 0 to n - 1.
Some courses may have prerequisites, for example to take course 0 you have to first take course 1, which is expressed as a pair: [0,1]
Given the total number of courses and a list of prerequisite pairs, is it possible for you to finish all courses?
For example:
2, [[1,0]]
There are a total of 2 courses to take. To take course 1 you should have finished course 0. So it is possible.
2, [[1,0],[0,1]]
There are a total of 2 courses to take. To take course 1 you should have finished course 0, and to take course 0 you should also have finished course 1. So it is impossible.
Note:
The input prerequisites is a graph represented by a list of edges, not adjacency matrices. Read more about how a graph is represented.
You may assume that there are no duplicate edges in the input prerequisites.
click to show more hints.
Hints:
This problem is equivalent to finding if a cycle exists in a directed graph. If a cycle exists, no topological ordering exists and therefore it will be impossible to take all courses.
Topological Sort via DFS - A great video tutorial (21 minutes) on Coursera explaining the basic concepts of Topological Sort.
Topological sort could also be done via BFS.
Quick Hints
- Topological Sort
Solution
Time complexity
O (V + E)
Space complexity
O (V)