Table of Contents
Description: Minimum Suffix Flips
You are given a 0-indexed binary string target
of length n
. You have another binary string s
of length n
that is initially set to all zeros. You want to make s
equal to target
.
In one operation, you can pick an index i
where 0 <= i < n
and flip all bits in the inclusive range [i, n - 1]
. Flip means changing '0'
to '1'
and '1'
to '0'
.
Return the minimum number of operations needed to make s
equal to target
.
Example 1
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<strong>Input:</strong> target = "10111" <strong>Output:</strong> 3 <strong>Explanation:</strong> Initially, s = "00000". Choose index i = 2: "00000" -> "00111" Choose index i = 0: "00111" -> "11000" Choose index i = 1: "11000" -> "10111" We need at least 3 flip operations to form target. |
Example 2
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<strong>Input:</strong> target = "101" <strong>Output:</strong> 3 <strong>Explanation:</strong> Initially, s = "000". Choose index i = 0: "000" -> "111" Choose index i = 1: "111" -> "100" Choose index i = 2: "100" -> "101" We need at least 3 flip operations to form target. |
Example 3
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<strong>Input:</strong> target = "00000" <strong>Output:</strong> 0 <strong>Explanation:</strong> We do not need any operations since the initial s already equals target. |
Constraints
n == target.length
1 <= n <= 105
target[i]
is either'0'
or'1'
.
Solution
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class Solution { public int minFlips(String target) { char prev = '0'; int count = 0; for(int i=0;i<target.length();i++){ char c = target.charAt(i); //check if the previous character is same as the current character //if not, increment operations count and update prev character if(c != prev){ count++; prev = c; } } return count; } } |
Time Complexity
O(n), where n is the number of characters in a string
Space Complexity
O(1)