Dynamic Programming – Stairs Climbing Puzzle

by

Objective: A child is climbing up a staircase with n steps, and can hop either 1 step, 2 steps, or 3 steps at a time. Implement a method to count how many possible ways the child can jump up the stairs.

Example:

Number of stairs : 3

Number of ways = 4 ( {1,1,1}, {1,2}, {2,1}, {3} )

Approach:

  • Say child has to take n steps.
  • At every step the child has 3 options, to take 1 step, 2 step or 3 steps.
  • So if child take 1 step then find the number of ways to complete n-1 steps +1.
  • Similarly if child take 2 steps then find the number of ways to complete n-2 steps +1.
  • If child take 3 step then find the number of ways to complete n-3 steps +1.
  • So total number of ways to complete n steps = No of ways to complete (n-1)steps + No of ways to complete (n-2)steps + No of ways to complete (n-3)steps +1.

Using Recursion:

public class StepsPossiblePathsRecur {
public int possibleWays(int n) {
if (n < 1) {
return 0;
}
return 1 + possibleWays(n – 1) + possibleWays(n – 2)
+ possibleWays(n – 3);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
int n = 3;
StepsPossiblePathsRecur s = new StepsPossiblePathsRecur();
System.out.println(s.possibleWays(n));
}
}

view raw
PossibleWays.java
hosted with ❤ by GitHub

If we solve this problem using recursion then all the sub-problems will be calculated repeatedly.

Using Dynamic Programming:

  • We will solve it Top-Down approach.
  • We need to store the solutions for the sub problems in an array.

DP Code:

public class StepsPossiblePathsRecur {
public int possibleWaysDyna(int n, int[] dyn) {
if (n == 0)
return 1;
if (n < 0)
return 0;
if (dyn[n] > 0) {
return dyn[n];
}
dyn[n] = possibleWaysDyna(n – 1, dyn) + possibleWaysDyna(n – 2, dyn)
+ possibleWaysDyna(n – 3, dyn);
return dyn[n];
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
int n = 3;
StepsPossiblePathsRecur s = new StepsPossiblePathsRecur();
int[] dyn = new int[n + 1];
System.out.println(s.possibleWaysDyna(n, dyn));
}
}

view raw
StepsPossiblePathsRecur.java
hosted with ❤ by GitHub


Output:

4

Related Posts: