Word Ladder
Difficulty: Hard
Category: DSA
Topics: Hash Table, String, Breadth-First Search
Asked at: Amazon, Facebook, Lyft, Microsoft, Google, Uber, Bloomberg, Qualtrics, Snapchat, Oracle, Yahoo, Apple, Zillow, Citadel
A **transformation sequence** from word `beginWord` to word `endWord` using a dictionary `wordList` is a sequence of words `beginWord -> s1 -> s2 -> ... -> sk` such that:
- Every adjacent pair of words differs by a single letter.
- Every `si` for `1 <= i <= k` is in `wordList`. Note that `beginWord` does not need to be in `wordList`.
- `sk == endWord`
Given two words, `beginWord` and `endWord`, and a dictionary `wordList`, return _the **number of words** in the **shortest transformation sequence** from_ `beginWord` _to_ `endWord`_, or _`0`_ if no such sequence exists._
**Example 1:**
**Input:** beginWord = "hit", endWord = "cog", wordList = ["hot","dot","dog","lot","log","cog"]
**Output:** 5
**Explanation:** One shortest transformation sequence is "hit" -> "hot" -> "dot" -> "dog" -> cog", which is 5 words long.
```
**Example 2:**
**Input:** beginWord = "hit", endWord = "cog", wordList = ["hot","dot","dog","lot","log"]
**Output:** 0
**Explanation:** The endWord "cog" is not in wordList, therefore there is no valid transformation sequence.
```
**Constraints:**
- `1 <= beginWord.length <= 10`
- `endWord.length == beginWord.length`
- `1 <= wordList.length <= 5000`
- `wordList[i].length == beginWord.length`
- `beginWord`, `endWord`, and `wordList[i]` consist of lowercase English letters.
- `beginWord != endWord`
- All the words in `wordList` are **unique**.