How can I print out all possible letter combinations a given phone number can represent?

Question

I just tried for my first programming interview and one of the questions was to write a program that given a 7 digit telephone number, could print all possible combinations

Answer 1

One option in Objective-C:

- (NSArray *)lettersForNumber:(NSNumber *)number {
    switch ([number intValue]) {
        case 2:
            return @[@"A",@"B",@"C"];
        case 3:
            return @[@"D",@"E",@"F"];
        case 4:
            return @[@"G",@"H",@"I"];
        case 5:
            return @[@"J",@"K",@"L"];
        case 6:
            return @[@"M",@"N",@"O"];
        case 7:
            return @[@"P",@"Q",@"R",@"S"];
        case 8:
            return @[@"T",@"U",@"V"];
        case 9:
            return @[@"W",@"X",@"Y",@"Z"];
        default:
            return nil;
    }
}

- (NSArray *)letterCombinationsForNumbers:(NSArray *)numbers {
    NSMutableArray *combinations = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithObjects:@"", nil];

    for (NSNumber *number in numbers) {
        NSArray *lettersNumber = [self lettersForNumber:number];

        //Ignore numbers that don't have associated letters
        if (lettersNumber.count == 0) {
            continue;
        }

        NSMutableArray *currentCombinations = [combinations mutableCopy];
        combinations = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];

        for (NSString *letter in lettersNumber) {

            for (NSString *letterInResult in currentCombinations) {

                NSString *newString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@%@", letterInResult, letter];
                [combinations addObject:newString];
            }
        }
    }

    return combinations;
}