LeetCode 76. Minimum Window Substring

Description

https://leetcode.com/problems/minimum-window-substring/

Given two strings s and t of lengths m and n respectively, return the minimum window substring of s such that every character in t (including duplicates) is included in the window. If there is no such substring, return the empty string "".

The testcases will be generated such that the answer is unique.

substring is a contiguous sequence of characters within the string.

Example 1:

Input: s = "ADOBECODEBANC", t = "ABC"
Output: "BANC"
Explanation: The minimum window substring "BANC" includes 'A', 'B', and 'C' from string t.

Example 2:

Input: s = "a", t = "a"
Output: "a"
Explanation: The entire string s is the minimum window.

Example 3:

Input: s = "a", t = "aa"
Output: ""
Explanation: Both 'a's from t must be included in the window.
Since the largest window of s only has one 'a', return empty string.

Constraints:

  • m == s.length
  • n == t.length
  • 1 <= m, n <= 105
  • s and t consist of uppercase and lowercase English letters.

Follow up: Could you find an algorithm that runs in O(m + n) time?

Explanation

Use two pointers sliding window. Increase the right pointer to meet the target string, and adjust the left pointer to see where is the place to have a minimum substring to have the target string.

Python Solution

class Solution:
    def minWindow(self, s: str, t: str) -> str:

        counter_t = {}
        counter_s = {}
                
        for c in t:
            counter_t[c] = counter_t.get(c, 0) + 1
            

        i = 0
        j = 0
        
        left = -1
        right = -1
        
        valid = 0
        
        for i in range(len(s)):
            
            while j < len(s) and valid < len(counter_t):
                counter_s[s[j]] = counter_s.get(s[j], 0) + 1
                
                if s[j] in counter_t and counter_s[s[j]] == counter_t[s[j]]:                    
                    valid += 1
            
                
                j += 1
                
            
            if valid == len(counter_t):
                if left == -1 or j - i < right - left:
                    left = i
                    right = j
        
            
            counter_s[s[i]] -= 1
            if s[i] in counter_t and counter_s[s[i]] == counter_t[s[i]] - 1:
                valid -= 1
                
        if left == -1:
            return ""
        
                
        return s[left : right]
        
  • Time Complexity: O(N).
  • Space Complexity: O(N).

where Q is the length of queries and N is the length of colors.

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