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Closed 10 years ago.
I am trying to write a function, it has 2 parameters one is of string and another is of number datatype, my function has to place a dot after every N characters, where N is provided at run time (some number provided through number datatype). Can anybody help me out please?
This smells like homework, so let me suggest how to start, and then you can come back with how far you've gotten.
First, you need to be able to iterate over the string, or at least to jump forward N characters along its length. Can you think of a construct that allows you to either iterate each character until you've iterated N character, or that allows you to split the string into substrings N characters long?
What language?
In C#:
public string PutDots(string input, int n)
{
char[] c = input.ToCharArray();
StringBuilder output = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < c.Length; i++)
{
output.Append(c[i]);
if (i % n == 0 && i > 0)
{
output.Append(".");
}
}
return output.ToString();
}
something like this maybe:
public string foo(string input, int count)
{
string result = "";
for(int i=0; i < input.length; i++)
{
result += input[i];
if(i % count == 0)
result += '.';
}
return result;
}
(Depending on the language you might want to use something else then string concatenation to build the resultingstring)
In C#:
static string InsertDots(string s, int n)
{
if(string.IsNullOrEmpty(s)) return s;
if(n <= 0 || n > s.Length) return s;
Regex re = new Regex(string.Format("(.{{{0}}})", n));
return re.Replace(s, "$1.");
}
Related
I have been working on an exercise from google's dev tech guide. It is called Compression and Decompression you can check the following link to get the description of the problem Challenge Description.
Here is my code for the solution:
public static String decompressV2 (String string, int start, int times) {
String result = "";
for (int i = 0; i < times; i++) {
inner:
{
for (int j = start; j < string.length(); j++) {
if (isNumeric(string.substring(j, j + 1))) {
String num = string.substring(j, j + 1);
int times2 = Integer.parseInt(num);
String temp = decompressV2(string, j + 2, times2);
result = result + temp;
int next_j = find_next(string, j + 2);
j = next_j;
continue;
}
if (string.substring(j, j + 1).equals("]")) { // Si es un bracket cerrado
break inner;
}
result = result + string.substring(j,j+1);
}
}
}
return result;
}
public static int find_next(String string, int start) {
int count = 0;
for (int i = start; i < string.length(); i++) {
if (string.substring(i, i+1).equals("[")) {
count= count + 1;
}
if (string.substring(i, i +1).equals("]") && count> 0) {
count = count- 1;
continue;
}
if (string.substring(i, i +1).equals("]") && count== 0) {
return i;
}
}
return -111111;
}
I will explain a little bit about the inner workings of my approach. It is a basic solution involves use of simple recursion and loops.
So, let's start from the beggining with a simple decompression:
DevTech.decompressV2("2[3[a]b]", 0, 1);
As you can see, the 0 indicates that it has to iterate over the string at index 0, and the 1 indicates that the string has to be evaluated only once: 1[ 2[3[a]b] ]
The core here is that everytime you encounter a number you call the algorithm again(recursively) and continue where the string insides its brackets ends, that's the find_next function for.
When it finds a close brackets, the inner loop breaks, that's the way I choose to make the stop sign.
I think that would be the main idea behind the algorithm, if you read the code closely you'll get the full picture.
So here are some of my concerns about the way I've written the solution:
I could not find a more clean solution to tell the algorithm were to go next if it finds a number. So I kind of hardcoded it with the find_next function. Is there a way to do this more clean inside the decompress func ?
About performance, It wastes a lot of time by doing the same thing again, when you have a number bigger than 1 at the begging of a bracket.
I am relatively to programming so maybe this code also needs an improvement not in the idea, but in the ways It's written. So would be very grateful to get some suggestions.
This is the approach I figure out but I am sure there are a couple more, I could not think of anyone but It would be great if you could tell your ideas.
In the description it tells you some things that you should be awared of when developing the solutions. They are: handling non-repeated strings, handling repetitions inside, not doing the same job twice, not copying too much. Are these covered by my approach ?
And the last point It's about tets cases, I know that confidence is very important when developing solutions, and the best way to give confidence to an algorithm is test cases. I tried a few and they all worked as expected. But what techniques do you recommend for developing test cases. Are there any softwares?
So that would be all guys, I am new to the community so I am open to suggestions about the how to improve the quality of the question. Cheers!
Your solution involves a lot of string copying that really slows it down. Instead of returning strings that you concatenate, you should pass a StringBuilder into every call and append substrings onto that.
That means you can use your return value to indicate the position to continue scanning from.
You're also parsing repeated parts of the source string more than once.
My solution looks like this:
public static String decompress(String src)
{
StringBuilder dest = new StringBuilder();
_decomp2(dest, src, 0);
return dest.toString();
}
private static int _decomp2(StringBuilder dest, String src, int pos)
{
int num=0;
while(pos < src.length()) {
char c = src.charAt(pos++);
if (c == ']') {
break;
}
if (c>='0' && c<='9') {
num = num*10 + (c-'0');
} else if (c=='[') {
int startlen = dest.length();
pos = _decomp2(dest, src, pos);
if (num<1) {
// 0 repetitions -- delete it
dest.setLength(startlen);
} else {
// copy output num-1 times
int copyEnd = startlen + (num-1) * (dest.length()-startlen);
for (int i=startlen; i<copyEnd; ++i) {
dest.append(dest.charAt(i));
}
}
num=0;
} else {
// regular char
dest.append(c);
num=0;
}
}
return pos;
}
I would try to return a tuple that also contains the next index where decompression should continue from. Then we can have a recursion that concatenates the current part with the rest of the block in the current recursion depth.
Here's JavaScript code. It takes some thought to encapsulate the order of operations that reflects the rules.
function f(s, i=0){
if (i == s.length)
return ['', i];
// We might start with a multiplier
let m = '';
while (!isNaN(s[i]))
m = m + s[i++];
// If we have a multiplier, we'll
// also have a nested expression
if (s[i] == '['){
let result = '';
const [word, nextIdx] = f(s, i + 1);
for (let j=0; j<Number(m); j++)
result = result + word;
const [rest, end] = f(s, nextIdx);
return [result + rest, end]
}
// Otherwise, we may have a word,
let word = '';
while (isNaN(s[i]) && s[i] != ']' && i < s.length)
word = word + s[i++];
// followed by either the end of an expression
// or another multiplier
const [rest, end] = s[i] == ']' ? ['', i + 1] : f(s, i);
return [word + rest, end];
}
var strs = [
'2[3[a]b]',
'10[a]',
'3[abc]4[ab]c',
'2[2[a]g2[r]]'
];
for (const s of strs){
console.log(s);
console.log(JSON.stringify(f(s)));
console.log('');
}
i am studying for an interview and encountered a question + solution.
i am having a problem with one line in the solution and was hoping maybe someone here can explain it.
the question:
Write a method to replace all spaces in a string with ‘%20’.
the solution:
public static void ReplaceFun(char[] str, int length) {
int spaceCount = 0, newLength, i = 0;
for (i = 0; i < length; i++) {
if (str[i] == ‘ ‘) {
spaceCount++;
}
}
newLength = length + spaceCount * 2;
str[newLength] = ‘\0’;
for (i = length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
if (str[i] == ‘ ‘) {
str[newLength - 1] = ‘0’;
str[newLength - 2] = ‘2’;
str[newLength - 3] = ‘%’;
newLength = newLength - 3;
} else {
str[newLength - 1] = str[i];
newLength = newLength - 1;
}
}
}
my problem is with line number 9. how can he just set str[newLength] to '\0'? or in other words, how can he take over the needed amount of memory without allocating it first or something like that?
isn't he running over a memory?!
Assuming this is actually meant to be in C (private static is not valid C or C++), they can't, as it's written. They're never allocating a new str which will be long enough to hold the old string plus the %20 expansion.
I suspect there's an additional part to the question, which is that str is already long enough to hold the expanded %20 data, and that length is the length of the string in str, not counting the zero terminator.
This is valid code, but it's not good code. You are completely correct in your assessment that we are overwriting the bounds of the initial str[]. This could cause some rather unwanted side-effects depending on what was being overwritten.
It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, visit the help center.
Closed 10 years ago.
please note that it doesn't require to really calculate Levenshtein edit distance. just check it's 1 or not.
The signature of the method may look like this:
bool Is1EditDistance(string s1, string s2).
for example:
1. "abc" and "ab" return true
2. "abc" and "aebc" return true
3. "abc" and "a" return false.
I've tried recursive approve, but it it not efficient.
update: got answer from a friend:
for (int i = 0; i < s1.Length && i < s2.Length; i++)
{
if (s1[i] != s2[i])
{
return s1.Substring(i + 1) == s2.Substring(i + 1) //case of change
|| s1.Substring(i + 1) == s2.Substring(i) //case of s1 has extra
|| s1.Substring(i) == s2.Substring(i + 1); //case of s2 has extra
}
}
return Math.Abs(s1.Length - s2.Length) == 1;
If you only care if the distance is exactly 1 or not, you can do something like this:
If the difference of the strings' lengths is not 0 or 1, return false.
If both strings have length n, loop i = 0..n checking s1[i] == s2[i] for all i except one.
If the strings have length n and n+1, let i be the smallest index where s1[i] != s2[i], then loop j=i..n checking s1[j] == s2[j+1] for all j.
Closed. This question needs to be more focused. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it focuses on one problem only by editing this post.
Closed 7 years ago.
Improve this question
I saw this in an interview question ,
Given a sorting order string, you are asked to sort the input string based on the given sorting order string.
for example if the sorting order string is dfbcae
and the Input string is abcdeeabc
the output should be dbbccaaee.
any ideas on how to do this , in an efficient way ?
The Counting Sort option is pretty cool, and fast when the string to be sorted is long compared to the sort order string.
create an array where each index corresponds to a letter in the alphabet, this is the count array
for each letter in the sort target, increment the index in the count array which corresponds to that letter
for each letter in the sort order string
add that letter to the end of the output string a number of times equal to it's count in the count array
Algorithmic complexity is O(n) where n is the length of the string to be sorted. As the Wikipedia article explains we're able to beat the lower bound on standard comparison based sorting because this isn't a comparison based sort.
Here's some pseudocode.
char[26] countArray;
foreach(char c in sortTarget)
{
countArray[c - 'a']++;
}
int head = 0;
foreach(char c in sortOrder)
{
while(countArray[c - 'a'] > 0)
{
sortTarget[head] = c;
head++;
countArray[c - 'a']--;
}
}
Note: this implementation requires that both strings contain only lowercase characters.
Here's a nice easy to understand algorithm that has decent algorithmic complexity.
For each character in the sort order string
scan string to be sorted, starting at first non-ordered character (you can keep track of this character with an index or pointer)
when you find an occurrence of the specified character, swap it with the first non-ordered character
increment the index for the first non-ordered character
This is O(n*m), where n is the length of the string to be sorted and m is the length of the sort order string. We're able to beat the lower bound on comparison based sorting because this algorithm doesn't really use comparisons. Like Counting Sort it relies on the fact that you have a predefined finite external ordering set.
Here's some psuedocode:
int head = 0;
foreach(char c in sortOrder)
{
for(int i = head; i < sortTarget.length; i++)
{
if(sortTarget[i] == c)
{
// swap i with head
char temp = sortTarget[head];
sortTarget[head] = sortTarget[i];
sortTarget[i] = temp;
head++;
}
}
}
In Python, you can just create an index and use that in a comparison expression:
order = 'dfbcae'
input = 'abcdeeabc'
index = dict([ (y,x) for (x,y) in enumerate(order) ])
output = sorted(input, cmp=lambda x,y: index[x] - index[y])
print 'input=',''.join(input)
print 'output=',''.join(output)
gives this output:
input= abcdeeabc
output= dbbccaaee
Use binary search to find all the "split points" between different letters, then use the length of each segment directly. This will be asymptotically faster then naive counting sort, but will be harder to implement:
Use an array of size 26*2 to store the begin and end of each letter;
Inspect the middle element, see if it is different from the element left to it. If so, then this is the begin for the middle element and end for the element before it;
Throw away the segment with identical begin and end (if there are any), recursively apply this algorithm.
Since there are at most 25 "split"s, you won't have to do the search for more than 25 segemnts, and for each segment it is O(logn). Since this is constant * O(logn), the algorithm is O(nlogn).
And of course, just use counting sort will be easier to implement:
Use an array of size 26 to record the number of different letters;
Scan the input string;
Output the string in the given sorting order.
This is O(n), n being the length of the string.
Interview questions are generally about thought process and don't usually care too much about language features, but I couldn't resist posting a VB.Net 4.0 version anyway.
"Efficient" can mean two different things. The first is "what's the fastest way to make a computer execute a task" and the second is "what's the fastest that we can get a task done". They might sound the same but the first can mean micro-optimizations like int vs short, running timers to compare execution times and spending a week tweaking every millisecond out of an algorithm. The second definition is about how much human time would it take to create the code that does the task (hopefully in a reasonable amount of time). If code A runs 20 times faster than code B but code B took 1/20th of the time to write, depending on the granularity of the timer (1ms vs 20ms, 1 week vs 20 weeks), each version could be considered "efficient".
Dim input = "abcdeeabc"
Dim sort = "dfbcae"
Dim SortChars = sort.ToList()
Dim output = New String((From c In input.ToList() Select c Order By SortChars.IndexOf(c)).ToArray())
Trace.WriteLine(output)
Here is my solution to the question
import java.util.*;
import java.io.*;
class SortString
{
public static void main(String arg[])throws IOException
{
BufferedReader br=new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));
// System.out.println("Enter 1st String :");
// System.out.println("Enter 1st String :");
// String s1=br.readLine();
// System.out.println("Enter 2nd String :");
// String s2=br.readLine();
String s1="tracctor";
String s2="car";
String com="";
String uncom="";
for(int i=0;i<s2.length();i++)
{
if(s1.contains(""+s2.charAt(i)))
{
com=com+s2.charAt(i);
}
}
System.out.println("Com :"+com);
for(int i=0;i<s1.length();i++)
if(!com.contains(""+s1.charAt(i)))
uncom=uncom+s1.charAt(i);
System.out.println("Uncom "+uncom);
System.out.println("Combined "+(com+uncom));
HashMap<String,Integer> h1=new HashMap<String,Integer>();
for(int i=0;i<s1.length();i++)
{
String m=""+s1.charAt(i);
if(h1.containsKey(m))
{
int val=(int)h1.get(m);
val=val+1;
h1.put(m,val);
}
else
{
h1.put(m,new Integer(1));
}
}
StringBuilder x=new StringBuilder();
for(int i=0;i<com.length();i++)
{
if(h1.containsKey(""+com.charAt(i)))
{
int count=(int)h1.get(""+com.charAt(i));
while(count!=0)
{x.append(""+com.charAt(i));count--;}
}
}
x.append(uncom);
System.out.println("Sort "+x);
}
}
Here is my version which is O(n) in time. Instead of unordered_map, I could have just used a char array of constant size. i.,e. char char_count[256] (and done ++char_count[ch - 'a'] ) assuming the input strings has all ASCII small characters.
string SortOrder(const string& input, const string& sort_order) {
unordered_map<char, int> char_count;
for (auto ch : input) {
++char_count[ch];
}
string res = "";
for (auto ch : sort_order) {
unordered_map<char, int>::iterator it = char_count.find(ch);
if (it != char_count.end()) {
string s(it->second, it->first);
res += s;
}
}
return res;
}
private static String sort(String target, String reference) {
final Map<Character, Integer> referencesMap = new HashMap<Character, Integer>();
for (int i = 0; i < reference.length(); i++) {
char key = reference.charAt(i);
if (!referencesMap.containsKey(key)) {
referencesMap.put(key, i);
}
}
List<Character> chars = new ArrayList<Character>(target.length());
for (int i = 0; i < target.length(); i++) {
chars.add(target.charAt(i));
}
Collections.sort(chars, new Comparator<Character>() {
#Override
public int compare(Character o1, Character o2) {
return referencesMap.get(o1).compareTo(referencesMap.get(o2));
}
});
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
for (Character c : chars) {
sb.append(c);
}
return sb.toString();
}
In C# I would just use the IComparer Interface and leave it to Array.Sort
void Main()
{
// we defin the IComparer class to define Sort Order
var sortOrder = new SortOrder("dfbcae");
var testOrder = "abcdeeabc".ToCharArray();
// sort the array using Array.Sort
Array.Sort(testOrder, sortOrder);
Console.WriteLine(testOrder.ToString());
}
public class SortOrder : IComparer
{
string sortOrder;
public SortOrder(string sortOrder)
{
this.sortOrder = sortOrder;
}
public int Compare(object obj1, object obj2)
{
var obj1Index = sortOrder.IndexOf((char)obj1);
var obj2Index = sortOrder.IndexOf((char)obj2);
if(obj1Index == -1 || obj2Index == -1)
{
throw new Exception("character not found");
}
if(obj1Index > obj2Index)
{
return 1;
}
else if (obj1Index == obj2Index)
{
return 0;
}
else
{
return -1;
}
}
}
I asked this question in a few interviews. I want to know from the Stackoverflow readers as to what should be the answer to this question.
Such a seemingly simple question, but has been interpreted quite a few different ways.
if your definition of a "word" is a series of non-whitespace characters surrounded by a whitespace character, then in 5 second pseudocode you do:
var words = split(inputString, " ")
var reverse = new array
var count = words.count -1
var i = 0
while count != 0
reverse[i] = words[count]
count--
i++
return reverse
If you want to take into consideration also spaces, you can do it like that:
string word = "hello my name is";
string result="";
int k=word.size();
for (int j=word.size()-1; j>=0; j--)
{
while(word[j]!= ' ' && j>=0)
j--;
int end=k;
k=j+1;
int count=0;
if (j>=0)
{
int temp=j;
while (word[temp]==' '){
count++;
temp--;
}
j-=count;
}
else j=j+1;
result+=word.substr(k,end-k);
k-=count;
while(count!=0)
{
result+=' ';
count--;
}
}
It will print out for you "is name my hello"
Taken from something called "Hacking a Google Interview" that was somewhere on my computer ... don't know from where I got it but I remember I saw this exact question inside ... here is the answer:
Reverse the string by swapping the
first character with the last
character, the second with the
second-to-last character, and so on.
Then, go through the string looking
for spaces, so that you find where
each of the words is. Reverse each of
the words you encounter by again
swapping the first character with the
last character, the second character
with the second-to-last character, and
so on.
This came up in LessThanDot Programmer Puzzles
#include<stdio.h>
void reverse_word(char *,int,int);
int main()
{
char s[80],temp;
int l,i,k;
int lower,upper;
printf("Enter the ssentence\n");
gets(s);
l=strlen(s);
printf("%d\n",l);
k=l;
for(i=0;i<l;i++)
{
if(k<=i)
{temp=s[i];
s[i]=s[l-1-i];
s[l-1-i]=temp;}
k--;
}
printf("%s\n",s);
lower=0;
upper=0;
for(i=0;;i++)
{
if(s[i]==' '||s[i]=='\0')
{upper=i-1;
reverse_word(s,lower,upper);
lower=i+1;
}
if(s[i]=='\0')
break;
}
printf("%s",s);
return 0;
}
void reverse_word(char *s,int lower,int upper)
{
char temp;
//int i;
while(upper>lower)
{
temp=s[lower];
s[lower]=s[upper];
s[upper]=temp;
upper=upper-1;
lower=lower+1;
}
}
The following code (C++) will convert a string this is a test to test a is this:
string reverseWords(string str)
{
string result = "";
vector<string> strs;
stringstream S(str);
string s;
while (S>>s)
strs.push_back(s);
reverse(strs.begin(), strs.end());
if (strs.size() > 0)
result = strs[0];
for(int i=1; i<strs.size(); i++)
result += " " + strs[i];
return result;
}
PS: it's actually a google code jam question, more info can be found here.