Computer Science Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for students, researchers and practitioners of computer science. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Can this problem be solved in poly time?
Input: $S_i \subset \{1,\cdots,n\}$ for $i=1,\cdots, n$.
Question: Is it possible to select an $a_i \in S_i$ for each $i=1,\cdots,n$, such that $\{a_1,\cdots,a_n\}=\{1,\cdots,n\}$?
Informally, the problem asks for selecting one element from each subset $S_i$ such that the selected elements cover the set $\{1, \cdots, n\}$.
Hint: Form a bipartite graph which has the sets $S_1,\ldots,S_n$ on one side and the numbers $1,\ldots,n$ on the other. Connect $S_i$ to $a$ if $S_i$ contains $a$. You are looking for a perfect matching in this graph.
