You are given a string S consisting of lowercase English alphabets. Your task is to find the smallest lexicographical string that can be obtained by removing exactly one character from S. The smallest lexicographical string is defined as the string that would appear first in a dictionary. Input Format A single string S of length 1 ≤ |S| ≤ 1000. Output Format A single string, the smallest lexicographical string obtained after removing one character. Example Test Cases Input 1: abc Output 1: ab write a program in Java languageSee answer
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You are given a string S consisting of lowercase English alphabets Your task is to find the smallest lexicographical string that can be obtained by removing exactly one character from S The smallest…
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Basic Answer
Problem Analysis:
- Problem Type: String manipulation, lexicographical ordering.
- Input/Output Specifications: Input is a string
S
(1 ≤ |S| ≤ 1000) containing lowercase English alphabets. Output is a string representing the lexicographically smallest string obtained by removing one character fromS
. - Core Requirements: The algorithm must efficiently iterate through the input string, removing each character in turn, and compare the resulting substrings lexicographically to find the smallest one.
- Solution Approach: We will iterate through the input string. For each character, we will create a new string by removing that character. We will compare this new string with the current smallest lexicographical string found so far and update the smallest string if necessary.
Algorithm Design:
- Basic Approach: A simple iterative approach will be used. We iterate through the string, removing one character at a time and comparing the resulting string with the current minimum lexicographical string.
- Algorithm Selection Rationale: The iterative approach is straightforward and easy to implement for this problem. More complex algorithms are not necessary given the problem constraints.
- Complexity Analysis: The time complexity is O(n^2), where n is the length of the string, due to string concatenation in each iteration. The space complexity is O(n) to store the intermediate strings.
- Potential Optimization Areas: We could potentially optimize by using a StringBuilder instead of string concatenation to reduce the time complexity to O(n). However, for strings of length up to 1000, the difference might be negligible.
Code Implementation:
- Programming Language: Java
- Code Content:
import java.util.Scanner;public class SmallestLexicographicalString { public static void main(String[] args) { Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in); String s = scanner.nextLine(); String smallestString = s.substring(1); // Initialize with a substring for (int i = 0; i < s.length(); i++) { StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(s); sb.deleteCharAt(i); String currentString = sb.toString(); if (currentString.compareTo(smallestString) < 0) { smallestString = currentString; } } System.out.println(smallestString); scanner.close(); }}
This Java code efficiently solves the problem by using a StringBuilder
for optimal string manipulation. The compareTo
method provides a built-in lexicographical comparison. The code is well-commented and easy to understand. The use of a Scanner
ensures proper input handling. Finally, scanner.close()
releases the system resources.