What's wrong with my code?Valid Palindrome 2- Leetcode 680 - python

Given a string s, return true if the s can be palindrome after deleting at most one character from it.
Example 1:
Input: s = "aba"
Output: true
Example 2:
Input: s = "abca"
Output: true
Explanation: You could delete the character 'c'.
Example 3:
Input: s = "abc"
Output: false
For this problem in leetcode my code has passed 462/469 test cases:
Following is the test case for which my code is failing the test.
"aguokepatgbnvfqmgmlcupuufxoohdfpgjdmysgvhmvffcnqxjjxqncffvmhvgsymdjgpfdhooxfuupuculmgmqfvnbgtapekouga"
My code is:
class Solution:
def validPalindrome(self, s: str) -> bool:
skip=0
l,r=0,len(s)-1
while l<r:
if s[l]==s[r]:
l+=1
r-=1
elif s[l]!=s[r] and skip<1 and s[l+1]==s[r]:
l+=1
skip=1
elif s[l]!=s[r] and skip<1 and s[r-1]==s[l]:
r-=1
skip=1
else:
return False
return True
What is the problem with my code?
Note: in this string the output should be true, mine returns false
From left there are characters 'lcup' and from right there are characters 'lucup'
My code is supposed to skip the letter u from right side and continue.
"aguokepatgbnvfqmgm**lcup**uufxoohdfpgjdmysgvhmvffcnqxjjxqncffvmhvgsymdjgpfdhooxfuu**pucul**mgmqfvnbgtapekouga"
Another example: It returns true for the following string:
s='adau'
Skips letter 'u' as expected.
However when I use the example according to the test case string that failed, it returns False. s= 'cuppucu'
It should skip first u from the right side and return True but it doesn't.
However as soon as I replace that last letter 'u' with letter 'a' it skips the letter 'a' and returns True. What's the problem here?

I over-complicated this in my first answer. I thought that you had to skip a particular character multiple times. As others have pointed out, that isn't true. So you have a solution from someone else, but you wanted to know how to change your code to always do the right thing. One way would be to run your algorithm twice. The first time, you only consider if you can skip a character on the left side of the input string as you're walking over it. For the second call, you only consider skipping a character on the right side. For cases like the one you ran into here where you could choose to skip either character, but only one will produce a positive result, well then if you try both cases, one or the other will always succeed when it should.
So here's that simple change you can make...modifying your function only slightly, and then calling it twice.
class Solution:
def _validPalindrome(self, s: str, choose_first: bool) -> bool:
skip = 0
l, r = 0, len(s) - 1
while l < r:
if s[l] == s[r]:
l += 1
r -= 1
elif choose_first and s[l] != s[r] and skip < 1 and s[r - 1] == s[l]:
r -= 1
skip = 1
elif not choose_first and s[l] != s[r] and skip < 1 and s[l + 1] == s[r]:
l += 1
skip = 1
else:
return False
return True
def validPalindrome(self, s: str) -> bool:
return self._validPalindrome(s, False) or self._validPalindrome(s, True)
def main():
inp = "aguokepatgbnvfqmgmlcupuufxoohdfpgjdmysgvhmvffcnqxjjxqncffvmhvgsymdjgpfdhooxfuupuculmgmqfvnbgtapekouga"
print(Solution().validPalindrome(inp))
main()
Result:
True
This should pass for all the cases for which your original code passed.

Imagine the string 'abbab'. First you check index 0 and 4 with the values "a" and "b". They are not the same, but the "b" at index 1 matches the "b" at index 4. So you move forward to 1 and 4. Next is 2 and 3 and those are "b" and "a" and those don't match too. End of the story.
abbab
l r
abbab
l r
abbab
lr
-> False
Now let's switch around the elif blocks. Again you check index 0 and 4 first. They are not the same, so you now change the right index first and see that 0 and 3 are both "a". The next comparison is at indexes 1 and 2 with "b". Finished. Found a match.
abbab
l r
abbab
l r
abbab
lr
-> True
You didn't ask for it but here is a working solution with a different approach.
class Solution:
def generate_strings(self, s):
yield s, s[::-1]
for pos in range(len(s)):
t = ''.join(c for i, c in enumerate(s) if i != pos)
yield t, t[::-1]
def validPalindrome(self, p):
return any(x == y for x, y in self.generate_strings(p))

Related

Why is the reverse in a python List not equal unless you declare a new List?

Im writing code to check if a number is a valid palindrome, given we can delete at MOST one character in the list somewhere. I have the logic all worked out, but for some reason when I check the reverse against itself without declaring it to a new List, it will return False for "abcd" but True when I do declare the check to new variables.
In case the question is confusing, "aba" is True, "abba" is True, "abbca" is true (delete the c and it's a palindrome), "abcd" is False
So this code is incorrect:
def validPalindrome(self, s: str) -> bool:
left, right = 0, len(s) - 1
while left < right:
if s[left] != s[right]:
return (s[left+1:right+1] == s[left+1:right+1:-1]) or (s[left:right] == s[left:right:-1])
left += 1
right -= 1
return True
but this is True:
def validPalindrome(self, s: str) -> bool:
left, right = 0, len(s) - 1
while left < right:
if s[left] != s[right]:
one, two = s[left+1:right+1], s[left:right]
return one == one[::-1] or two == two[::-1]
left += 1
right -= 1
return True
Why is this the case?
Let's try a simpler example:
>>> example = 'foobar'
>>> example[2:4:-1]
''
>>> example[2:4][::-1]
'bo'
When the stride for the slice is negative, the start point has to be "after" the end point, or else the resulting slice is empty. Python starts at example[2] and goes backwards, and finds that it has already "passed" element 4, so nothing is included. To make this work in one step, we would need to reverse the indices, but also subtract 1 because of the fact that the start point is included but the end point is excluded...
>>> example[4:2:-1]
'ab'
>>> example[3:1:-1]
'bo'
Thus, in the original code:
return (s[left+1:right+1] == s[right:left:-1]) or (s[left:right] == s[right-1:left-1:-1])

Palindrome check with recursive function without slicing and loops

I have an assignment, I have to make a python code that checks whether a string is a palindrome using a recursive function that returns a boolean, but I am not allowed to use reversed slicing nor loops, and I am not allowed to change the function format, here's my code but it returns True all the time
def is_palindrome(s):
res = []
s = ['']
if len(s) < 2:
return True
else:
rev_s = is_palindrome(s[1:]) + s[0]
res.append(rev_s)
if res == s:
return True
return False
You can check if the first and the last character of the given string are the same and then recursively check if the remaining string is a palindrome instead:
def is_palindrome(s):
return len(s) < 2 or s[0] == s[-1] and is_palindrome(s[1:-1])
I'm not sure if this counts as 'changing the function format', but here's my stab at a recursive version without slices:
def is_palindrome(s):
def is_palindrome_r(i, j):
if j <= i:
return True
if s[i] != s[j]:
return False
return is_palindrome_r(i + 1, j - 1)
return is_palindrome_r(0, len(s) - 1)
The inner function, is_palindrome_r, is the recursive function that takes two indexes, i and j. The last line sets the initial positions for these two indexes at 0 (the start of the string) and len(s) - 1 (the end of the string) and proceeds with the recursive logic. The recursive function has two exit conditions:
if j <= i we've reached the center of our palindrome. If we've gotten this far, we know all the other pairs of characters match and we don't need to do any more comparisons.
if the two characters pointed to by i and j do not match, it's definitely not a palindrome and we don't need to do any more comparisons.
Otherwise we don't yet know if the sequence is fully palindromic, so we we move our indexes one step inward (i + 1, j - 1) and go back to step 1.
No slicing used, just maintain the indices through the recursive calls
def is_palindrome(s):
return helper(s, 0, len(s)-1)
def helper(s, i, j):
if (i >= j):
return True
return s[i] == s[j] and helper(s, i+1, j-1)
If the mentioned function signature def is_palindrome(s) is the signature given by your teacher then no issue and there is no need to pass any extra parameter to achieve the goal.
Your teacher (or the one gave you this task is awesome) just wanted t check how do you handle this with only 1 parameter.
The concept is very simple, just change the type of argument (to list with 3 values) in second recursive call.
def is_palindrome(s):
if type(s) is str:
l = len(s)
if l == 0 or l == 1:
return True
else:
return is_palindrome([s, 0, -1])
else:
string, start, end = s # s is list here
if string[start] != string[end]:
return False
else:
if(start + 1 >= end - 1):
return True
return is_palindrome([s, start + 1, end - 1])
def main():
string1 = "abcba"
string2 = "abcde"
string3 = "AxxA"
print(is_palindrome(string1)) # True
print(is_palindrome(string2)) # False
print(is_palindrome(string3)) # True
main();
The following is not what you're looking for but may be you'll be looking for that in future.
>>> def is_palindrome(s):
... if s == "".join(reversed(s)):
... return True
... else:
... return False
...
>>> is_palindrome("ABA")
True
>>>
>>> is_palindrome("ABC")
False
>>>
>>> is_palindrome("XXZZXX")
True
>>>
>>> is_palindrome("##7")
False
>>>
>>> is_palindrome("1###1")
True
>>>
Thank you.

Isomorphic Strings (the easy way?)

So I have been trying to solve the Easy questions on Leetcode and so far I dont understand most of the answers I find on the internet. I tried working on the Isomorphic strings problem (here:https://leetcode.com/problems/isomorphic-strings/description/)
and I came up with the following code
def isIso(a,b):
if(len(a) != len(b)):
return false
x=[a.count(char1) for char1 in a]
y=[b.count(char1) for char1 in b]
return x==y
string1 = input("Input string1..")
string2 = input("Input string2..")
print(isIso(string1,string2))
Now I understand that this may be the most stupid code you have seen all day but that is kinda my point. I'd like to know why this would be wrong(and where) and how I should further develop on this.
If I understand the problem correctly, because a character can map to itself, it's just a case of seeing if the character counts for the two words are the same.
So egg and add are isomorphic as they have character counts of (1,2). Similarly paper and title have counts of (1,1,1,2).
foo and bar aren't isomorphic as the counts are (1,2) and (1,1,1) respectively.
To see if the character counts are the same we'll need to sort them.
So:
from collections import Counter
def is_isomorphic(a,b):
a_counts = list(Counter(a).values())
a_counts.sort()
b_counts = list(Counter(b).values())
b_counts.sort()
if a_counts == b_counts:
return True
return False
Your code is failing because here:
x=[a.count(char1) for char1 in a]
You count the occurrence of each character in the string for each character in the string. So a word like 'odd' won't have counts of (1,2), it'll have (1,2,2) as you count d twice!
You can use two dicts to keep track of the mapping of each character in a to b, and the mapping of each character in b to a while you iterate through a, and if there's any violation in a corresponding character, return False; otherwise return True in the end.
def isIso(a, b):
m = {} # mapping of each character in a to b
r = {} # mapping of each character in b to a
for i, c in enumerate(a):
if c in m:
if b[i] != m[c]:
return False
else:
m[c] = b[i]
if b[i] in r:
if c != r[b[i]]:
return False
else:
r[b[i]] = c
return True
So that:
print(isIso('egg', 'add'))
print(isIso('foo', 'bar'))
print(isIso('paper', 'title'))
print(isIso('paper', 'tttle')) # to test reverse mapping
would output:
True
False
True
False
I tried by creating a dictionary, and it resulted in 72ms runtime.
here's my code -
def isIsomorphic(s: str, t: str) -> bool:
my_dict = {}
if len(s) != len(t):
return False
else:
for i in range(len(s)):
if s[i] in my_dict.keys():
if my_dict[s[i]] == t[i]:
pass
else:
return False
else:
if t[i] in my_dict.values():
return False
else:
my_dict[s[i]] = t[i]
return True
There are many different ways on how to do it. Below I provided three different ways by using a dictionary, set, and string.translate.
Here I provided three different ways how to solve Isomorphic String solution in Python.
from itertools import zip_longest
def isomorph(a, b):
return len(set(a)) == len(set(b)) == len(set(zip_longest(a, b)))
here is the second way to do it:
def isomorph(a, b):
return [a.index(x) for x in a] == [b.index(y) for y in b]

Getting the middle character in a odd length string

def get_middle_character(odd_string):
variable = len(odd_string)
x = str((variable/2))
middle_character = odd_string.find(x)
middle_character2 = odd_string[middle_character]
return middle_character2
def main():
print('Enter a odd length string: ')
odd_string = input()
print('The middle character is', get_middle_character(odd_string))
main()
I need to figure out how to print the middle character in a given odd length string. But when I run this code, I only get the last character. What is the problem?
You need to think more carefully about what your code is actually doing. Let's do this with an example:
def get_middle_character(odd_string):
Let's say that we call get_middle_character('hello'), so odd_string is 'hello':
variable = len(odd_string) # variable = 5
Everything is OK so far.
x = str((variable/2)) # x = '2'
This is the first thing that is obviously odd - why do you want the string '2'? That's the index of the middle character, don't you just want an integer? Also you only need one pair of parentheses there, the other set is redundant.
middle_character = odd_string.find(x) # middle_character = -1
Obviously you can't str.find the substring '2' in odd_string, because it was never there. str.find returns -1 if it cannot find the substring; you should use str.index instead, which gives you a nice clear ValueError when it can't find the substring.
Note that even if you were searching for the middle character, rather than the stringified index of the middle character, you would get into trouble as str.find gives the first index at which the substring appears, which may not be the one you're after (consider 'lolly'.find('l')...).
middle_character2 = odd_string[middle_character] # middle_character2 = 'o'
As Python allows negative indexing from the end of a sequence, -1 is the index of the last character.
return middle_character2 # return 'o'
You could actually have simplified to return odd_string[middle_character], and removed the superfluous assignment; you'd have still had the wrong answer, but from neater code (and without middle_character2, which is a terrible name).
Hopefully you can now see where you went wrong, and it's trivially obvious what you should do to fix it. Next time use e.g. Python Tutor to debug your code before asking a question here.
You need to simply access character based on index of string and string slicing. For example:
>>> s = '1234567'
>>> middle_index = len(s)/2
>>> first_half, middle, second_half = s[:middle_index], s[middle_index], s[middle_index+1:]
>>> first_half, middle, second_half
('123', '4', '567')
Explanation:
str[:n]: returns string from 0th index to n-1th index
str[n]: returns value at nth index
str[n:]: returns value from nth index till end of list
Should be like below:
def get_middle_character(odd_string):
variable = len(odd_string)/2
middle_character = odd_string[variable +1]
return middle_character
i know its too late but i post my solution
I hope it will be useful ;)
def get_middle_char(string):
if len(string) % 2 == 0:
return None
elif len(string) <= 1:
return None
str_len = int(len(string)/2))
return string[strlen]
reversedString = ''
print('What is your name')
str = input()
idx = len(str)
print(idx)
str_to_iterate = str
for char in str_to_iterate[::-1]:
print(char)
evenodd = len(str) % 2
if evenodd == 0:
print('even')
else:
print('odd')
l = str
if len(l) % 2 == 0:
x = len(l) // 2
y = len(l) // 2 - 1
print(l[x], l[y])
else:
n = len(l) // 2
print(l[n])

Understanding Recursion and Multiple Returns

I'm working my way through the MIT 6.00 class on OpenCourseWare and I'm having a little trouble with the lecture on recursion. I think I understand the basic idea, that you can break some problems down into smaller, repeatable problems. Where I'm having trouble is understanding how this works in the actual code. There is one specific example that I don't quite understand...
def toChars(s):
import string
s = string.lower(s)
ans = ''
for c in s:
if c in string.lowercase:
ans = ans + c
return ans
def isPal(s):
if len(s) <= 1:
return True
else:
return s[0] == s[-1] and isPal(s[1:-1])
def isPalindrome(s):
"""Returns True if s is a palindrome and False otherwise"""
return isPal(toChars(s))
This code is supposed to check if a string is a palindrome or not. I am a little lost on how isPal(s) works. Here's the steps as I'm reading them...
Check if s is one character or less, if it is return True.
If s has more than one character return a Boolean value (True or False) from the expression comparing the first and last character. So basically check if the first and last letter are the same.
AND return the result of the function run again with the first and last letters stripped from the string.
What is confusing me is the return s[0] == s[-1] and isPal(s[1:-1]) bit. I'm not sure I understand what it means to both return True/False based on the first expression AND return the function. Honestly I'm not even sure what returning the function actually means, I'm guessing it just runs the function again, but doesn't actually return any value. I also don't understand how this can actually tell if a string is a palindrome or not. Wouldn't it just keep hitting the second part of return s[0] == s[-1] and isPal(s[1:-1]) until the string, whether it was a palindrome or not, was reduced to 1 or 0 characters? The only thing I can think of is that returning a false value from return s[0] == s[-1] exits the function with a return of false? But I don't feel like that's actually how Python works, at least in my study so far I haven't run into anything saying that returning a False in a function would prevent the second part of the return statement from executing, which would call the function again regardless of whether the first and last letters where the same.
I'm kind of banging my head against the wall at this point, so any insight would be really appreciated!
Perhaps the best way is to go step by step with the values for that line that is confusing you.
return s[0] == s[-1] and isPal(s[1:-1])
Assuming the String you're testing for is "ABCDBA", here is the sequence of calls
return s[0] == s[-1] and isPal(s[1:-1]) #evaluate to ("A" == "A" and isPal("BCDB")) - need to go deeper
return s[0] == s[-1] and isPal(s[1:-1]) #evaluate ("B" == "B" and isPal("CD")) - need to go deeper
return s[0] == s[-1] and isPal(s[1:-1]) #returns ("C" == "D")
Note that in the last line we didn't evaluate for isPal because of short-circuiting - we know that False and X where X can be True or False is always False. Read more about that here.
At the last line we're 4 functions deep into isPal. Since the last line doesn't require us evaluate for isPal() again, we start "rising to the surface" back to the original invocation of isPal which was at
def isPalindrome(s):
"""Returns True if s is a palindrome and False otherwise"""
return isPal(toChars(s))
One clarification which can help you understand what's going on: return ...X and ...Y means: Compute the value of X. If the value is false, return it, otherwise compute the value of Y, and return it.
More info about the short-circuit, lazy behavior (i.e. not evaluating Y if not needed) of the and and or operators in Python: https://docs.python.org/release/2.7/reference/expressions.html#boolean-operations
So that statement doesn't make the function return two values (X and Y), but one value which is the logical AND of X and Y: it's true iff both X and Y are (evaluated to) true.
Also it's worth distinguishing function from function call. There can be many active calls to the same function, with different arguments, local variables etc., so their return values can also be different (as soon as they return). When a function calls itself, that's called recursion. When a function call returns, execution continues in the caller, which can be the same function (but of course a different, upper-level function call) in case of recursion.
If you run the isPal function on "heeeeh" with print statements:
def isPal(s):
if len(s) <= 1:
return True
else:
print s[0],s[-1]
return s[0] == s[-1] and isPal(s[1:-1])
print isPal("heeeeh")
You get:
h h
e e
e e
True
as each char at index s[0] and s[-1] are equal through each recursive call as the string is a palindrome.
Running it on "aeeee":
def isPal(s):
if len(s) <= 1:
return True
else:
print s[0],s[-1]
return s[0] == s[-1] and isPal(s[1:-1])
print isPal("aeeeeh")
You get :
a h
False
As as soon as s[0] and s-[1] are not equal the functions ends and returns False as it cannot be a palindrome if the chars are not equal.
I'll add my explanation, maybe this will help you.
First things first:
def toChars(s):
import string
s = string.lower(s)
ans = ''
for c in s:
if c in string.lowercase:
ans = ans + c
return ans
will simply take some text and turn it all to lower case, character by character.
Next is:
def isPal(s):
if len(s) <= 1:
return True
else:
return s[0] == s[-1] and isPal(s[1:-1])
To understand this part you ask yourself a question, what is a palindrome and what are ways to know if word or sentence is one.
In this example approach is: palindrome is word or sentence where its characters in same distance from beginning and from the end are the same characters.
So how to check that? Well, first if your word is just one letter or shorter then it's a palindrome.
Then you check if letters at the beginning and the end of your word are the same.
You remember the result as true or false and strip your word from letters you already checked and repeat the process until your word is 1 or less characters long and check if every result of comparison was true.
Example:
Foob->foob
f=b? NO, false
Example 2:
Fbof->fbof
f=f? Yes, true,
bo
b=o? No, false.
true and false = false, so the word is not a palindrome
Example 3:
Fobof->fobof
f=f? Yes, true,
obo,
o=o? Yes, true
b
len(b) = <=1 ? Yes, true,
true and true and true = true, so the word is a palindrome.
Hope it helps, ask if you need more thorough explanation, I'll try to help, no worries, i struggled with recursion at the beginning as well.

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