2024-07-20
1605. Find Valid Matrix Given Row and Column Sums

Topic: Array, Greedy, Matrix
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
You are given two arrays rowSum and colSum of non-negative integers where rowSum[i] is the sum of the elements in the i^th row and colSum[j] is the sum of the elements of the j^th column of a 2D matrix. In other words, you do not know the elements of the matrix, but you do know the sums of each row and column.

Find any matrix of non-negative integers of size rowSum.length x colSum.length that satisfies the rowSum and colSum requirements.

Return a 2D array representing any matrix that fulfills the requirements. It's guaranteed that at least one matrix that fulfills the requirements exists.

Example 1:

Input: rowSum = [3,8], colSum = [4,7]
Output: [[3,0],
         [1,7]]
Explanation: 
0^th row: 3 + 0 = 3 == rowSum[0]
1^st row: 1 + 7 = 8 == rowSum[1]
0^th column: 3 + 1 = 4 == colSum[0]
1^st column: 0 + 7 = 7 == colSum[1]
The row and column sums match, and all matrix elements are non-negative.
Another possible matrix is: [[1,2],
                             [3,5]]

Example 2:

Input: rowSum = [5,7,10], colSum = [8,6,8]
Output: [[0,5,0],
         [6,1,0],
         [2,0,8]]

Constraints:

• 1 <= rowSum.length, colSum.length <= 500
• 0 <= rowSum[i], colSum[i] <= 10^8
• sum(rowSum) == sum(colSum)

2024-07-21
2392. Build a Matrix With Conditions

Topic: Array, Graph, Topological Sort, Matrix
Difficulty: Hard

Problem:
You are given a positive integer k. You are also given:

• a 2D integer array rowConditions of size n where rowConditions[i] = [above_i, below_i], and
• a 2D integer array colConditions of size m where colConditions[i] = [left_i, right_i].

The two arrays contain integers from 1 to k.

You have to build a k x k matrix that contains each of the numbers from 1 to k exactly once. The remaining cells should have the value 0.

The matrix should also satisfy the following conditions:

• The number above_i should appear in a row that is strictly above the row at which the number below_i appears for all i from 0 to n - 1.
• The number left_i should appear in a column that is strictly left of the column at which the number right_i appears for all i from 0 to m - 1.

Return any matrix that satisfies the conditions. If no answer exists, return an empty matrix.

Example 1:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2022/07/06/gridosdrawio.png

Input: k = 3, rowConditions = [[1,2],[3,2]], colConditions = [[2,1],[3,2]]
Output: [[3,0,0],[0,0,1],[0,2,0]]
Explanation: The diagram above shows a valid example of a matrix that satisfies all the conditions.
The row conditions are the following:
- Number 1 is in row 1, and number 2 is in row 2, so 1 is above 2 in the matrix.
- Number 3 is in row 0, and number 2 is in row 2, so 3 is above 2 in the matrix.
The column conditions are the following:
- Number 2 is in column 1, and number 1 is in column 2, so 2 is left of 1 in the matrix.
- Number 3 is in column 0, and number 2 is in column 1, so 3 is left of 2 in the matrix.
Note that there may be multiple correct answers.

Example 2:

Input: k = 3, rowConditions = [[1,2],[2,3],[3,1],[2,3]], colConditions = [[2,1]]
Output: []
Explanation: From the first two conditions, 3 has to be below 1 but the third conditions needs 3 to be above 1 to be satisfied.
No matrix can satisfy all the conditions, so we return the empty matrix.

Constraints:

• 2 <= k <= 400
• 1 <= rowConditions.length, colConditions.length <= 10^4
• rowConditions[i].length == colConditions[i].length == 2
• 1 <= above_i, below_i, left_i, right_i <= k
• above_i != below_i
• left_i != right_i

2024-07-22
2418. Sort the People

Topic: Array, Hash Table, String, Sorting
Difficulty: Easy

Problem:
You are given an array of strings names, and an array heights that consists of distinct positive integers. Both arrays are of length n.

For each index i, names[i] and heights[i] denote the name and height of the i^th person.

Return names sorted in descending order by the people's heights.

Example 1:

Input: names = ["Mary","John","Emma"], heights = [180,165,170]
Output: ["Mary","Emma","John"]
Explanation: Mary is the tallest, followed by Emma and John.

Example 2:

Input: names = ["Alice","Bob","Bob"], heights = [155,185,150]
Output: ["Bob","Alice","Bob"]
Explanation: The first Bob is the tallest, followed by Alice and the second Bob.

Constraints:

• n == names.length == heights.length
• 1 <= n <= 10^3
• 1 <= names[i].length <= 20
• 1 <= heights[i] <= 10^5
• names[i] consists of lower and upper case English letters.
• All the values of heights are distinct.

2024-07-23
1636. Sort Array by Increasing Frequency

Topic: Array, Hash Table, Sorting
Difficulty: Easy

Problem:
Given an array of integers nums, sort the array in increasing order based on the frequency of the values. If multiple values have the same frequency, sort them in decreasing order.

Return the sorted array.

Example 1:

Input: nums = [1,1,2,2,2,3]
Output: [3,1,1,2,2,2]
Explanation: '3' has a frequency of 1, '1' has a frequency of 2, and '2' has a frequency of 3.

Example 2:

Input: nums = [2,3,1,3,2]
Output: [1,3,3,2,2]
Explanation: '2' and '3' both have a frequency of 2, so they are sorted in decreasing order.

Example 3:

Input: nums = [-1,1,-6,4,5,-6,1,4,1]
Output: [5,-1,4,4,-6,-6,1,1,1]

Constraints:

• 1 <= nums.length <= 100
• -100 <= nums[i] <= 100

2024-07-24
2191. Sort the Jumbled Numbers

Topic: Array, Sorting
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
You are given a 0-indexed integer array mapping which represents the mapping rule of a shuffled decimal system. mapping[i] = j means digit i should be mapped to digit j in this system.

The mapped value of an integer is the new integer obtained by replacing each occurrence of digit i in the integer with mapping[i] for all 0 <= i <= 9.

You are also given another integer array nums. Return the array nums sorted in non-decreasing order based on the mapped values of its elements.

Notes:

• Elements with the same mapped values should appear in the same relative order as in the input.
• The elements of nums should only be sorted based on their mapped values and not be replaced by them.

Example 1:

Input: mapping = [8,9,4,0,2,1,3,5,7,6], nums = [991,338,38]
Output: [338,38,991]
Explanation: 
Map the number 991 as follows:
1. mapping[9] = 6, so all occurrences of the digit 9 will become 6.
2. mapping[1] = 9, so all occurrences of the digit 1 will become 9.
Therefore, the mapped value of 991 is 669.
338 maps to 007, or 7 after removing the leading zeros.
38 maps to 07, which is also 7 after removing leading zeros.
Since 338 and 38 share the same mapped value, they should remain in the same relative order, so 338 comes before 38.
Thus, the sorted array is [338,38,991].

Example 2:

Input: mapping = [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9], nums = [789,456,123]
Output: [123,456,789]
Explanation: 789 maps to 789, 456 maps to 456, and 123 maps to 123. Thus, the sorted array is [123,456,789].

Constraints:

• mapping.length == 10
• 0 <= mapping[i] <= 9
• All the values of mapping[i] are unique.
• 1 <= nums.length <= 3 * 10^4
• 0 <= nums[i] < 10^9

2024-07-25
912. Sort an Array

Topic: Array, Divide and Conquer, Sorting, Heap (Priority Queue), Merge Sort, Bucket Sort, Radix Sort, Counting Sort
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
Given an array of integers nums, sort the array in ascending order and return it.

You must solve the problem without using any built-in functions in O(nlog(n)) time complexity and with the smallest space complexity possible.

Example 1:

Input: nums = [5,2,3,1]
Output: [1,2,3,5]
Explanation: After sorting the array, the positions of some numbers are not changed (for example, 2 and 3), while the positions of other numbers are changed (for example, 1 and 5).

Example 2:

Input: nums = [5,1,1,2,0,0]
Output: [0,0,1,1,2,5]
Explanation: Note that the values of nums are not necessairly unique.

Constraints:

• 1 <= nums.length <= 5 * 10^4
• -5 * 10^4 <= nums[i] <= 5 * 10^4

2024-07-26
1334. Find the City With the Smallest Number of Neighbors at a Threshold Distance

Topic: Dynamic Programming, Graph, Shortest Path
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
There are n cities numbered from 0 to n-1. Given the array edges where edges[i] = [from_i, to_i, weight_i] represents a bidirectional and weighted edge between cities from_i and to_i, and given the integer distanceThreshold.

Return the city with the smallest number of cities that are reachable through some path and whose distance is at most distanceThreshold, If there are multiple such cities, return the city with the greatest number.

Notice that the distance of a path connecting cities i and j is equal to the sum of the edges' weights along that path.

Example 1:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2020/01/16/find_the_city_01.png

Input: n = 4, edges = [[0,1,3],[1,2,1],[1,3,4],[2,3,1]], distanceThreshold = 4
Output: 3
Explanation: The figure above describes the graph. 
The neighboring cities at a distanceThreshold = 4 for each city are:
City 0 -> [City 1, City 2] 
City 1 -> [City 0, City 2, City 3] 
City 2 -> [City 0, City 1, City 3] 
City 3 -> [City 1, City 2] 
Cities 0 and 3 have 2 neighboring cities at a distanceThreshold = 4, but we have to return city 3 since it has the greatest number.

Example 2:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2020/01/16/find_the_city_02.png

Input: n = 5, edges = [[0,1,2],[0,4,8],[1,2,3],[1,4,2],[2,3,1],[3,4,1]], distanceThreshold = 2
Output: 0
Explanation: The figure above describes the graph. 
The neighboring cities at a distanceThreshold = 2 for each city are:
City 0 -> [City 1] 
City 1 -> [City 0, City 4] 
City 2 -> [City 3, City 4] 
City 3 -> [City 2, City 4]
City 4 -> [City 1, City 2, City 3] 
The city 0 has 1 neighboring city at a distanceThreshold = 2.

Constraints:

• 2 <= n <= 100
• 1 <= edges.length <= n * (n - 1) / 2
• edges[i].length == 3
• 0 <= from_i < to_i < n
• 1 <= weight_i, distanceThreshold <= 10^4
• All pairs (from_i, to_i) are distinct.

2024-07-27
2976. Minimum Cost to Convert String I

Topic: Array, String, Graph, Shortest Path
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
You are given two 0-indexed strings source and target, both of length n and consisting of lowercase English letters. You are also given two 0-indexed character arrays original and changed, and an integer array cost, where cost[i] represents the cost of changing the character original[i] to the character changed[i].

You start with the string source. In one operation, you can pick a character x from the string and change it to the character y at a cost of z if there exists any index j such that cost[j] == z, original[j] == x, and changed[j] == y.

Return the minimum cost to convert the string source to the string target using any number of operations. If it is impossible to convert source to target, return -1.

Note that there may exist indices i, j such that original[j] == original[i] and changed[j] == changed[i].

Example 1:

Input: source = "abcd", target = "acbe", original = ["a","b","c","c","e","d"], changed = ["b","c","b","e","b","e"], cost = [2,5,5,1,2,20]
Output: 28
Explanation: To convert the string "abcd" to string "acbe":
- Change value at index 1 from 'b' to 'c' at a cost of 5.
- Change value at index 2 from 'c' to 'e' at a cost of 1.
- Change value at index 2 from 'e' to 'b' at a cost of 2.
- Change value at index 3 from 'd' to 'e' at a cost of 20.
The total cost incurred is 5 + 1 + 2 + 20 = 28.
It can be shown that this is the minimum possible cost.

Example 2:

Input: source = "aaaa", target = "bbbb", original = ["a","c"], changed = ["c","b"], cost = [1,2]
Output: 12
Explanation: To change the character 'a' to 'b' change the character 'a' to 'c' at a cost of 1, followed by changing the character 'c' to 'b' at a cost of 2, for a total cost of 1 + 2 = 3. To change all occurrences of 'a' to 'b', a total cost of 3 * 4 = 12 is incurred.

Example 3:

Input: source = "abcd", target = "abce", original = ["a"], changed = ["e"], cost = [10000]
Output: -1
Explanation: It is impossible to convert source to target because the value at index 3 cannot be changed from 'd' to 'e'.

Constraints:

• 1 <= source.length == target.length <= 10^5
• source, target consist of lowercase English letters.
• 1 <= cost.length == original.length == changed.length <= 2000
• original[i], changed[i] are lowercase English letters.
• 1 <= cost[i] <= 10^6
• original[i] != changed[i]

2024-07-28
2045. Second Minimum Time to Reach Destination

Topic: Breadth-First Search, Graph, Shortest Path
Difficulty: Hard

Problem:
A city is represented as a bi-directional connected graph with n vertices where each vertex is labeled from 1 to n (inclusive). The edges in the graph are represented as a 2D integer array edges, where each edges[i] = [u_i, v_i] denotes a bi-directional edge between vertex u_i and vertex v_i. Every vertex pair is connected by at most one edge, and no vertex has an edge to itself. The time taken to traverse any edge is time minutes.

Each vertex has a traffic signal which changes its color from green to red and vice versa every change minutes. All signals change at the same time. You can enter a vertex at any time, but can leave a vertex only when the signal is green. You cannot wait at a vertex if the signal is green.

The second minimum value is defined as the smallest value strictly larger than the minimum value.

• For example the second minimum value of [2, 3, 4] is 3, and the second minimum value of [2, 2, 4] is 4.

Given n, edges, time, and change, return the second minimum time it will take to go from vertex 1 to vertex n.

Notes:

• You can go through any vertex any number of times, including 1 and n.
• You can assume that when the journey starts, all signals have just turned green.

Example 1:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2021/09/29/e1.png
       
Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2021/09/29/e2.png

Input: n = 5, edges = [[1,2],[1,3],[1,4],[3,4],[4,5]], time = 3, change = 5
Output: 13
Explanation:
The figure on the left shows the given graph.
The blue path in the figure on the right is the minimum time path.
The time taken is:
- Start at 1, time elapsed=0
- 1 -> 4: 3 minutes, time elapsed=3
- 4 -> 5: 3 minutes, time elapsed=6
Hence the minimum time needed is 6 minutes.

The red path shows the path to get the second minimum time.
- Start at 1, time elapsed=0
- 1 -> 3: 3 minutes, time elapsed=3
- 3 -> 4: 3 minutes, time elapsed=6
- Wait at 4 for 4 minutes, time elapsed=10
- 4 -> 5: 3 minutes, time elapsed=13
Hence the second minimum time is 13 minutes.

Example 2:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2021/09/29/eg2.png

Input: n = 2, edges = [[1,2]], time = 3, change = 2
Output: 11
Explanation:
The minimum time path is 1 -> 2 with time = 3 minutes.
The second minimum time path is 1 -> 2 -> 1 -> 2 with time = 11 minutes.

Constraints:

• 2 <= n <= 10^4
• n - 1 <= edges.length <= min(2 * 10^4, n * (n - 1) / 2)
• edges[i].length == 2
• 1 <= u_i, v_i <= n
• u_i != v_i
• There are no duplicate edges.
• Each vertex can be reached directly or indirectly from every other vertex.
• 1 <= time, change <= 10^3

2024-07-29
1395. Count Number of Teams

Topic: Array, Dynamic Programming, Binary Indexed Tree
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
There are n soldiers standing in a line. Each soldier is assigned a unique rating value.

You have to form a team of 3 soldiers amongst them under the following rules:

• Choose 3 soldiers with index (i, j, k) with rating (rating[i], rating[j], rating[k]).
• A team is valid if: (rating[i] < rating[j] < rating[k]) or (rating[i] > rating[j] > rating[k]) where (0 <= i < j < k < n).

Return the number of teams you can form given the conditions. (soldiers can be part of multiple teams).

Example 1:

Input: rating = [2,5,3,4,1]
Output: 3
Explanation: We can form three teams given the conditions. (2,3,4), (5,4,1), (5,3,1).

Example 2:

Input: rating = [2,1,3]
Output: 0
Explanation: We can't form any team given the conditions.

Example 3:

Input: rating = [1,2,3,4]
Output: 4

Constraints:

• n == rating.length
• 3 <= n <= 1000
• 1 <= rating[i] <= 10^5
• All the integers in rating are unique.

2024-07-30
1653. Minimum Deletions to Make String Balanced

Topic: String, Dynamic Programming, Stack
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
You are given a string s consisting only of characters 'a' and 'b'​​​​.

You can delete any number of characters in s to make s balanced. s is balanced if there is no pair of indices (i,j) such that i < j and s[i] = 'b' and s[j]= 'a'.

Return the minimum number of deletions needed to make s balanced.

Example 1:

Input: s = "aababbab"
Output: 2
Explanation: You can either:
Delete the characters at 0-indexed positions 2 and 6 ("aababbab" -> "aaabbb"), or
Delete the characters at 0-indexed positions 3 and 6 ("aababbab" -> "aabbbb").

Example 2:

Input: s = "bbaaaaabb"
Output: 2
Explanation: The only solution is to delete the first two characters.

Constraints:

• 1 <= s.length <= 10^5
• s[i] is 'a' or 'b'​​.

2024-07-31
1105. Filling Bookcase Shelves

Topic: Array, Dynamic Programming
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
You are given an array books where books[i] = [thickness_i, height_i] indicates the thickness and height of the i^th book. You are also given an integer shelfWidth.

We want to place these books in order onto bookcase shelves that have a total width shelfWidth.

We choose some of the books to place on this shelf such that the sum of their thickness is less than or equal to shelfWidth, then build another level of the shelf of the bookcase so that the total height of the bookcase has increased by the maximum height of the books we just put down. We repeat this process until there are no more books to place.

Note that at each step of the above process, the order of the books we place is the same order as the given sequence of books.

• For example, if we have an ordered list of 5 books, we might place the first and second book onto the first shelf, the third book on the second shelf, and the fourth and fifth book on the last shelf.

Return the minimum possible height that the total bookshelf can be after placing shelves in this manner.

Example 1:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2019/06/24/shelves.png

Input: books = [[1,1],[2,3],[2,3],[1,1],[1,1],[1,1],[1,2]], shelfWidth = 4
Output: 6
Explanation:
The sum of the heights of the 3 shelves is 1 + 3 + 2 = 6.
Notice that book number 2 does not have to be on the first shelf.

Example 2:

Input: books = [[1,3],[2,4],[3,2]], shelfWidth = 6
Output: 4

Constraints:

• 1 <= books.length <= 1000
• 1 <= thickness_i <= shelfWidth <= 1000
• 1 <= height_i <= 1000

2024-08-01
2678. Number of Senior Citizens

Topic: Array, String
Difficulty: Easy

Problem:
You are given a 0-indexed array of strings details. Each element of details provides information about a given passenger compressed into a string of length 15. The system is such that:

• The first ten characters consist of the phone number of passengers.
• The next character denotes the gender of the person.
• The following two characters are used to indicate the age of the person.
• The last two characters determine the seat allotted to that person.

Return the number of passengers who are strictly more than 60 years old.

Example 1:

Input: details = ["7868190130M7522","5303914400F9211","9273338290F4010"]
Output: 2
Explanation: The passengers at indices 0, 1, and 2 have ages 75, 92, and 40. Thus, there are 2 people who are over 60 years old.

Example 2:

Input: details = ["1313579440F2036","2921522980M5644"]
Output: 0
Explanation: None of the passengers are older than 60.

Constraints:

• 1 <= details.length <= 100
• details[i].length == 15
• details[i] consists of digits from '0' to '9'.
• details[i][10] is either 'M' or 'F' or 'O'.
• The phone numbers and seat numbers of the passengers are distinct.

2024-08-02
2134. Minimum Swaps to Group All 1's Together II

Topic: Array, Sliding Window
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
A swap is defined as taking two distinct positions in an array and swapping the values in them.

A circular array is defined as an array where we consider the first element and the last element to be adjacent.

Given a binary circular array nums, return the minimum number of swaps required to group all 1's present in the array together at any location.

Example 1:

Input: nums = [0,1,0,1,1,0,0]
Output: 1
Explanation: Here are a few of the ways to group all the 1's together:
[0,0,1,1,1,0,0] using 1 swap.
[0,1,1,1,0,0,0] using 1 swap.
[1,1,0,0,0,0,1] using 2 swaps (using the circular property of the array).
There is no way to group all 1's together with 0 swaps.
Thus, the minimum number of swaps required is 1.

Example 2:

Input: nums = [0,1,1,1,0,0,1,1,0]
Output: 2
Explanation: Here are a few of the ways to group all the 1's together:
[1,1,1,0,0,0,0,1,1] using 2 swaps (using the circular property of the array).
[1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0] using 2 swaps.
There is no way to group all 1's together with 0 or 1 swaps.
Thus, the minimum number of swaps required is 2.

Example 3:

Input: nums = [1,1,0,0,1]
Output: 0
Explanation: All the 1's are already grouped together due to the circular property of the array.
Thus, the minimum number of swaps required is 0.

Constraints:

• 1 <= nums.length <= 10^5
• nums[i] is either 0 or 1.

2024-08-03
1460. Make Two Arrays Equal by Reversing Subarrays

Topic: Array, Hash Table, Sorting
Difficulty: Easy

Problem:
You are given two integer arrays of equal length target and arr. In one step, you can select any non-empty subarray of arr and reverse it. You are allowed to make any number of steps.

Return true if you can make arr equal to target or false otherwise.

Example 1:

Input: target = [1,2,3,4], arr = [2,4,1,3]
Output: true
Explanation: You can follow the next steps to convert arr to target:
1- Reverse subarray [2,4,1], arr becomes [1,4,2,3]
2- Reverse subarray [4,2], arr becomes [1,2,4,3]
3- Reverse subarray [4,3], arr becomes [1,2,3,4]
There are multiple ways to convert arr to target, this is not the only way to do so.

Example 2:

Input: target = [7], arr = [7]
Output: true
Explanation: arr is equal to target without any reverses.

Example 3:

Input: target = [3,7,9], arr = [3,7,11]
Output: false
Explanation: arr does not have value 9 and it can never be converted to target.

Constraints:

• target.length == arr.length
• 1 <= target.length <= 1000
• 1 <= target[i] <= 1000
• 1 <= arr[i] <= 1000

2024-08-04
1508. Range Sum of Sorted Subarray Sums

Topic: Array, Two Pointers, Binary Search, Sorting
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
You are given the array nums consisting of n positive integers. You computed the sum of all non-empty continuous subarrays from the array and then sorted them in non-decreasing order, creating a new array of n * (n + 1) / 2 numbers.

Return the sum of the numbers from index left to index right (indexed from 1), inclusive, in the new array. Since the answer can be a huge number return it modulo 10^9 + 7.

Example 1:

Input: nums = [1,2,3,4], n = 4, left = 1, right = 5
Output: 13 
Explanation: All subarray sums are 1, 3, 6, 10, 2, 5, 9, 3, 7, 4. After sorting them in non-decreasing order we have the new array [1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10]. The sum of the numbers from index le = 1 to ri = 5 is 1 + 2 + 3 + 3 + 4 = 13.

Example 2:

Input: nums = [1,2,3,4], n = 4, left = 3, right = 4
Output: 6
Explanation: The given array is the same as example 1. We have the new array [1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10]. The sum of the numbers from index le = 3 to ri = 4 is 3 + 3 = 6.

Example 3:

Input: nums = [1,2,3,4], n = 4, left = 1, right = 10
Output: 50

Constraints:

• n == nums.length
• 1 <= nums.length <= 1000
• 1 <= nums[i] <= 100
• 1 <= left <= right <= n * (n + 1) / 2

2024-08-05
2053. Kth Distinct String in an Array

Topic: Array, Hash Table, String, Counting
Difficulty: Easy

Problem:
A distinct string is a string that is present only once in an array.

Given an array of strings arr, and an integer k, return the k^th distinct string present in arr. If there are fewer than k distinct strings, return an empty string "".

Note that the strings are considered in the order in which they appear in the array.

Example 1:

Input: arr = ["d","b","c","b","c","a"], k = 2
Output: "a"
Explanation:
The only distinct strings in arr are "d" and "a".
"d" appears 1^st, so it is the 1^st distinct string.
"a" appears 2^nd, so it is the 2^nd distinct string.
Since k == 2, "a" is returned.

Example 2:

Input: arr = ["aaa","aa","a"], k = 1
Output: "aaa"
Explanation:
All strings in arr are distinct, so the 1^st string "aaa" is returned.

Example 3:

Input: arr = ["a","b","a"], k = 3
Output: ""
Explanation:
The only distinct string is "b". Since there are fewer than 3 distinct strings, we return an empty string "".

Constraints:

• 1 <= k <= arr.length <= 1000
• 1 <= arr[i].length <= 5
• arr[i] consists of lowercase English letters.

2024-08-06
3016. Minimum Number of Pushes to Type Word II

Topic: Hash Table, String, Greedy, Sorting, Counting
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
You are given a string word containing lowercase English letters.

Telephone keypads have keys mapped with distinct collections of lowercase English letters, which can be used to form words by pushing them. For example, the key 2 is mapped with ["a","b","c"], we need to push the key one time to type "a", two times to type "b", and three times to type "c" .

It is allowed to remap the keys numbered 2 to 9 to distinct collections of letters. The keys can be remapped to any amount of letters, but each letter must be mapped to exactly one key. You need to find the minimum number of times the keys will be pushed to type the string word.

Return the minimum number of pushes needed to type word after remapping the keys.

An example mapping of letters to keys on a telephone keypad is given below. Note that 1, *, #, and 0 do not map to any letters.

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2023/12/26/keypaddesc.png

Example 1:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2023/12/26/keypadv1e1.png

Input: word = "abcde"
Output: 5
Explanation: The remapped keypad given in the image provides the minimum cost.
"a" -> one push on key 2
"b" -> one push on key 3
"c" -> one push on key 4
"d" -> one push on key 5
"e" -> one push on key 6
Total cost is 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 5.
It can be shown that no other mapping can provide a lower cost.

Example 2:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2023/12/26/keypadv2e2.png

Input: word = "xyzxyzxyzxyz"
Output: 12
Explanation: The remapped keypad given in the image provides the minimum cost.
"x" -> one push on key 2
"y" -> one push on key 3
"z" -> one push on key 4
Total cost is 1 * 4 + 1 * 4 + 1 * 4 = 12
It can be shown that no other mapping can provide a lower cost.
Note that the key 9 is not mapped to any letter: it is not necessary to map letters to every key, but to map all the letters.

Example 3:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2023/12/27/keypadv2.png

Input: word = "aabbccddeeffgghhiiiiii"
Output: 24
Explanation: The remapped keypad given in the image provides the minimum cost.
"a" -> one push on key 2
"b" -> one push on key 3
"c" -> one push on key 4
"d" -> one push on key 5
"e" -> one push on key 6
"f" -> one push on key 7
"g" -> one push on key 8
"h" -> two pushes on key 9
"i" -> one push on key 9
Total cost is 1 * 2 + 1 * 2 + 1 * 2 + 1 * 2 + 1 * 2 + 1 * 2 + 1 * 2 + 2 * 2 + 6 * 1 = 24.
It can be shown that no other mapping can provide a lower cost.

Constraints:

• 1 <= word.length <= 10^5
• word consists of lowercase English letters.

2024-08-07
273. Integer to English Words

Topic: Math, String, Recursion
Difficulty: Hard

Problem:
Convert a non-negative integer num to its English words representation.

Example 1:

Input: num = 123
Output: "One Hundred Twenty Three"

Example 2:

Input: num = 12345
Output: "Twelve Thousand Three Hundred Forty Five"

Example 3:

Input: num = 1234567
Output: "One Million Two Hundred Thirty Four Thousand Five Hundred Sixty Seven"

Constraints:

• 0 <= num <= 2^31 - 1

2024-08-08
885. Spiral Matrix III

Topic: Array, Matrix, Simulation
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
You start at the cell (rStart, cStart) of an rows x cols grid facing east. The northwest corner is at the first row and column in the grid, and the southeast corner is at the last row and column.

You will walk in a clockwise spiral shape to visit every position in this grid. Whenever you move outside the grid's boundary, we continue our walk outside the grid (but may return to the grid boundary later.). Eventually, we reach all rows * cols spaces of the grid.

Return an array of coordinates representing the positions of the grid in the order you visited them.

Example 1:

Image: https://s3-lc-upload.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2018/08/24/example_1.png

Input: rows = 1, cols = 4, rStart = 0, cStart = 0
Output: [[0,0],[0,1],[0,2],[0,3]]

Example 2:

Image: https://s3-lc-upload.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2018/08/24/example_2.png

Input: rows = 5, cols = 6, rStart = 1, cStart = 4
Output: [[1,4],[1,5],[2,5],[2,4],[2,3],[1,3],[0,3],[0,4],[0,5],[3,5],[3,4],[3,3],[3,2],[2,2],[1,2],[0,2],[4,5],[4,4],[4,3],[4,2],[4,1],[3,1],[2,1],[1,1],[0,1],[4,0],[3,0],[2,0],[1,0],[0,0]]

Constraints:

• 1 <= rows, cols <= 100
• 0 <= rStart < rows
• 0 <= cStart < cols