2109. Adding Spaces to a String
Description
You are given a 0-indexed string s and a 0-indexed integer array spaces that describes the indices in the original string where spaces will be added. Each space should be inserted before the character at the given index.
- For example, given
s = "EnjoyYourCoffee"andspaces = [5, 9], we place spaces before'Y'and'C', which are at indices5and9respectively. Thus, we obtain"Enjoy Your Coffee".
Return the modified string after the spaces have been added.
Example 1:
Input: s = "LeetcodeHelpsMeLearn", spaces = [8,13,15] Output: "Leetcode Helps Me Learn" Explanation: The indices 8, 13, and 15 correspond to the underlined characters in "LeetcodeHelpsMeLearn". We then place spaces before those characters.
Example 2:
Input: s = "icodeinpython", spaces = [1,5,7,9] Output: "i code in py thon" Explanation: The indices 1, 5, 7, and 9 correspond to the underlined characters in "icodeinpython". We then place spaces before those characters.
Example 3:
Input: s = "spacing", spaces = [0,1,2,3,4,5,6] Output: " s p a c i n g" Explanation: We are also able to place spaces before the first character of the string.
Constraints:
1 <= s.length <= 3 * 105sconsists only of lowercase and uppercase English letters.1 <= spaces.length <= 3 * 1050 <= spaces[i] <= s.length - 1- All the values of
spacesare strictly increasing.
Solutions
Solution 1: Two Pointers
Thinking
Spaces must be inserted at given indices without changing the relative order of \(s\). Inserting into a string in place would shift the suffix repeatedly and can become quadratic.
\(\textit{spaces}\) is increasing, so it can be consumed in lockstep with the indices of \(s\) in linear time.
A pointer \(j\) marks the next space. While scanning \(s\), if the current index equals \(\textit{spaces}[j]\) we append a space first, then the character, and finally join the buffer.
We can use two pointers \(i\) and \(j\) to point to the beginning of the string \(s\) and the array \(\textit{spaces}\), respectively. Then, we iterate through the string \(s\) from the beginning to the end. When \(i\) equals \(\textit{spaces}[j]\), we add a space to the result string, and then increment \(j\) by \(1\). Next, we add \(s[i]\) to the result string, and then increment \(i\) by \(1\). We continue this process until we have iterated through the entire string \(s\).
The time complexity is \(O(n + m)\), and the space complexity is \(O(n + m)\), where \(n\) and \(m\) are the lengths of the string \(s\) and the array \(spaces\), respectively.
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