#1505
Minimum Possible Integer After at Most K Adjacent Swaps On Digits
HardStringGreedyBinary Indexed TreeSegment TreeGreedy AlgorithmPriority QueueSliding Window
Approaches
Brute ForceOptimal
Complexity Comparison
| Brute Force | Optimal Solution★ | |
|---|---|---|
| Time | O(n²) | O(n log n) |
| Space | O(1) | O(n) |
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Intuition
Time O(n log n)Space O(n)
The optimal approach uses a greedy strategy with a priority queue (or min-heap) to efficiently find the smallest digit in the range allowed by k swaps. This reduces unnecessary checks and directly gives the best result.
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Algorithm
3 steps- 1Step 1: Use a min-heap to keep track of the digits within the range of k swaps.
- 2Step 2: For each position, extract the smallest digit from the heap and place it in the current position.
- 3Step 3: Adjust the heap by adding the next digit from the string and removing the digit that has been placed.
solution.py18 lines
1import heapq
2
3def minInteger(num, k):
4 num = list(num)
5 n = len(num)
6 result = []
7 heap = []
8 for i in range(n):
9 heapq.heappush(heap, (num[i], i))
10 if len(heap) > k + 1:
11 heapq.heappop(heap)
12 if len(heap) > 0:
13 smallest, idx = heapq.heappop(heap)
14 result.append(smallest)
15 k -= (idx - i)
16 if k < 0:
17 break
18 return ''.join(result) + ''.join(num[i:] for i in range(len(result), n))ℹ
Complexity note: The time complexity is dominated by the heap operations, which take O(log n) time for each insertion and extraction, leading to O(n log n) overall.
- 1The goal is to bring the smallest digits to the front, as they contribute most to minimizing the integer.
- 2Adjacent swaps mean that we can only move digits within a limited range, which requires careful management of positions.
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