# Posts tagged as “Palindrome”

Given a string s consisting only of letters 'a' and 'b'. In a single step you can remove one palindromic subsequence from s.

Return the minimum number of steps to make the given string empty.

A string is a subsequence of a given string, if it is generated by deleting some characters of a given string without changing its order.

A string is called palindrome if is one that reads the same backward as well as forward.

Example 1:

Input: s = "ababa"
Output: 1


Example 2:

Input: s = "abb"
Output: 2
Explanation: "abb" -> "bb" -> "".
Remove palindromic subsequence "a" then "bb".


Example 3:

Input: s = "baabb"
Output: 2
Explanation: "baabb" -> "b" -> "".
Remove palindromic subsequence "baab" then "b".


Example 4:

Input: s = ""
Output: 0


Constraints:

• 0 <= s.length <= 1000
• s only consists of letters ‘a’ and ‘b’

## Solution: Math

if s is empty => 0 step
if s is a palindrome => 1 step
Otherwise, 2 steps…
1. delete all the as
2. delete all the bs

Time complexity: O(n)
Space complexity: O(n) / O(1)

## C++

Given a palindromic string palindrome, replace exactly one character by any lowercase English letter so that the string becomes the lexicographically smallest possible string that isn’t a palindrome.

After doing so, return the final string.  If there is no way to do so, return the empty string.

Example 1:

Input: palindrome = "abccba"
Output: "aaccba"


Example 2:

Input: palindrome = "a"
Output: ""


Constraints:

• 1 <= palindrome.length <= 1000
• palindrome consists of only lowercase English letters.

## Solution: Greedy

For the first half of the string, replace the first non ‘a’ character to ‘a’.

e.g. abcdcba => aacdcba

If not found which means the the entire string is ‘a’ expect the middle one if the length is odd, like aa or aba, replace the last character to ‘b’.

aa => ab
aba => abb

Time complexity: O(n)
Space complexity: O(1)

## C++

Given a string s. In one step you can insert any character at any index of the string.

Return the minimum number of steps to make s palindrome.

Palindrome String is one that reads the same backward as well as forward.

Example 1:

Input: s = "zzazz"
Output: 0
Explanation: The string "zzazz" is already palindrome we don't need any insertions.


Example 2:

Input: s = "mbadm"
Output: 2
Explanation: String can be "mbdadbm" or "mdbabdm".


Example 3:

Input: s = "leetcode"
Output: 5
Explanation: Inserting 5 characters the string becomes "leetcodocteel".


Example 4:

Input: s = "g"
Output: 0


Example 5:

Input: s = "no"
Output: 1


Constraints:

• 1 <= s.length <= 500
• All characters of s are lower case English letters.

## Solution: DP

dp[i][j] := min chars to insert
dp[j][j] = dp[i-1][j+1] if s[i] == s[j] else min(dp[i+1][j] , dp[i][j-1]) + 1
base case: dp[i][i] = 0
ans: dp[0][n-1]

Time complexity: O(n^2)
Space complexity: O(n^2)

## C++

Given a string s, partition s such that every substring of the partition is a palindrome.

Return the minimum cuts needed for a palindrome partitioning of s.

Example:

Input: "aab"
Output: 1
Explanation: The palindrome partitioning ["aa","b"] could be produced using 1 cut.

## Solution: DP

dp[i] := min cuts of s[0~i]
dp[i] = min{dp[j] + 1} if s[j+1~i] is a palindrome.

Time complexity: O(n^2)
Space complexity: O(n^2)

DP v2

## Related Problems

Given a string s, partition s such that every substring of the partition is a palindrome.

Return all possible palindrome partitioning of s.

Example:

Input: "aab"
Output:
[
["aa","b"],
["a","a","b"]
]

## Solution1: DP

dp[i] := ans of str[0:i]
dp[j] = { x + str[i:len] for x in dp[i] }, 0 <= i < len

Time complexity: O(2^n)
Space complexity: O(2^n)

## Solution 2: DFS

Time complexity: O(2^n)
Space complexity: O(n)

## C++

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