Given a string s we need to tell minimum characters to be appended (insertion at end) to make a string palindrome.
Examples:
Input : s = "abede"
Output : 2
We can make string palindrome as "abedeba"
by adding ba at the end of the string.
Input : s = "aabb"
Output : 2
We can make string palindrome as"aabbaa"
by adding aa at the end of the string.
The solution can be achieved by removing characters from the beginning of the string one by one and checking if the string is palindrome or not.
For Example, consider the above string, s = abede.
We check if the string is palindrome or not.
The result is false, then we remove the character from the beginning of string and now string becomes bede.
We check if the string is palindrome or not. The result is again false, then we remove the character from the beginning of string and now string becomes ede.
We check if the string is palindrome or not. The result is true, so the output becomes 2 which is the number of characters removed from the string.
Implementation of above approach:
// C program to find minimum number of appends
// needed to make a string Palindrome
#include<stdio.h>
#include<string.h>
#include<stdbool.h>
// Checking if the string is palindrome or not
bool isPalindrome(char *str)
{
int len = strlen(str);
// single character is always palindrome
if (len == 1)
return true;
// pointing to first character
char *ptr1 = str;
// pointing to last character
char *ptr2 = str+len-1;
while (ptr2 > ptr1)
{
if (*ptr1 != *ptr2)
return false;
ptr1++;
ptr2--;
}
return true;
}
// Recursive function to count number of appends
int noOfAppends(char s[])
{
if (isPalindrome(s))
return 0;
// Removing first character of string by
// incrementing base address pointer.
s++;
return 1 + noOfAppends(s);
}
// Driver program to test above functions
int main()
{
char s[] = "abede";
printf("%d\n", noOfAppends(s));
return 0;
}
Output
The above approach described and O(n**2) approach.
Efficient Approach:
We also have an algorithm taking the help of Knuth Morris Pratt Algorithm which is O(n) Time Complexity.
The basic idea behind the approach is that we calculate the largest substring from the end can be calculated and the length of the string minus this value is the minimum number of appends. The logic is intuitive, we need not append the palindrome and only those which do not form the palindrome. To find this largest palindrome from the end, we reverse the string, calculate the dfa and reverse the string again(thus gaining back the original string) and finding the final state, which represents the number of matches of the string with the revered string and hence we get the largest substring that is a palindrome from the end, in O(n) time.
Below is the implementation of the above approach:
// CPP program for above approach
#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
// This class builds the dfa and
// precomputes the state.
// See KMP algorithm for explanation
class kmp_numeric {
private:
int n;
int** dfa;
public:
kmp_numeric(string& s)
{
n = s.length();
int c = 256;
// Create dfa
dfa = new int*[n];
// Iterate from 0 to n
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
dfa[i] = new int;
int x = 0;
// Iterate from 0 to n
for (int i = 0; i < c; i++)
dfa[0][i] = 0;
// Initialise dfa[0][s[0]] = 1
dfa[0][s[0]] = 1;
// Iterate i from 1 to n-1
for (int i = 1; i < n; i++) {
// Itearte j from 0 to c - 1
for (int j = 0; j < c; j++) {
dfa[i][j] = dfa[x][j];
}
dfa[i][s[i]] = i + 1;
x = dfa[x][s[i]];
}
}
// This function finds the overlap
// between two strings,by
// changing the state.
int longest_overlap(string& query)
{
// q1 is length of query
int ql = query.length();
int state = 0;
// Iterate from 0 to q1 - 1
for (int i = 0; i < ql; i++) {
state = dfa[state][query[i]];
}
return state;
}
};
int min_appends(string& s)
{
// Reverse the string.
reverse(s.begin(), s.end());
// Build the DFA for the
// reversed String
kmp_numeric kmp = s;
// Get the original string back
reverse(s.begin(), s.end());
// Largest overlap in this case is the
// largest string from the end which
// is a palindrome.
int ans = s.length() - kmp.longest_overlap(s);
return ans;
}
// Driver Code
int main()
{
string s = "deep";
// Answer : 3
string t = "sososososos";
// Answer : 0
cout << min_appends(s) << endl;
cout << min_appends(t) << endl;
}
Comments