Edit Distance

Given two strings word1 and word2, return the minimum number of operations required to convert word1 to word2.

You have the following three operations permitted on a word:

• Insert a character

• Delete a character

• Replace a character

Example 1:

Input: word1 = "horse", word2 = "ros"
Output: 3
Explanation: 
horse -> rorse (replace 'h' with 'r')
rorse -> rose (remove 'r')
rose -> ros (remove 'e')

Example 2:

Input: word1 = "intention", word2 = "execution"
Output: 5
Explanation: 
intention -> inention (remove 't')
inention -> enention (replace 'i' with 'e')
enention -> exention (replace 'n' with 'x')
exention -> exection (replace 'n' with 'c')
exection -> execution (insert 'u')

Constraints:

• 0 <= word1.length, word2.length <= 500

• word1 and word2 consist of lowercase English letters.

Solution:

class Solution {
    public int minDistance(String word1, String word2) {
        int m = word1.length();
        int n = word2.length();
        int[][] dp = new int[m + 1][n + 1];
        //first row
        for(int i = 0; i <= m; i++)
            dp[i][0] = i;
        
        //first column
        for(int j = 0; j <= n; j++) 
            dp[0][j] = j;
        
        for(int i = 1; i <= m; i++) {
            for(int j = 1; j <= n; j++) {
                if(word1.charAt(i - 1) == word2.charAt(j - 1))
                    dp[i][j] = dp[i - 1][j - 1];
                else {
                    dp[i][j] = 1 + Math.min(dp[i - 1][j - 1], Math.min(dp[i][j - 1], dp[i - 1][j]));
                }
            }
        }
        
        return dp[m][n];
    }
}