Leetcode – Replace All Digits with Characters Solution

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The “Replace All Digits with Characters” problem is an engaging coding challenge that brings together string manipulation and character arithmetic. This problem provides a fascinating opportunity for those interested in exploring the power and flexibility of Python’s string processing capabilities. This article aims to dissect this problem from different angles, presenting various Pythonic ways to solve it.

Problem Statement

You are given a 0-based string s that has lowercase English letters in its even indices and digits in its odd indices.

There is a function shift(c, x), where c is a character and x is a digit, that returns the xth character after c.

For example, shift('a', 5) = 'f' and shift('x', 0) = 'x'.

For every odd index i, you want to replace the digit s[i] with shift(s[i-1], s[i]).

Return s after replacing all digits. It is guaranteed that shift(s[i-1], s[i]) will never exceed ‘z’.

Constraints

  • 1 <= s.length <= 100
  • s consists only of lowercase English letters and digits.
  • shift(s[i-1], s[i]) <= 'z'

Example:

Input: s = "a1c1e1"

Output: "abcdef"

Approach 1: Iterative Method Using ASCII Values

We can solve this problem by iterating through the string, identifying the characters at odd indices, and replacing them with the shifted characters.

Here’s a Python code snippet for this approach:

def replaceDigits(s):
    s = list(s)
    for i in range(1, len(s), 2):
        s[i] = chr(ord(s[i - 1]) + int(s[i]))
    return ''.join(s)

Time Complexity

The time complexity for this approach is O(n), where n is the length of the string s.

Space Complexity

The space complexity is O(n) since we convert the string to a list to perform in-place operations.

Approach 2: List Comprehension

Python’s list comprehension provides a concise way to handle lists. We can use it to replace all digits with characters in a single line of code.

def replaceDigits(s):
    return ''.join([chr(ord(s[i - 1]) + int(s[i])) if i % 2 else s[i] for i in range(len(s))])

Time Complexity

The time complexity remains O(n).

Space Complexity

The space complexity is also O(n) due to the list comprehension creating a new list.

Unit Testing

Regardless of the approach you choose, testing the implementation against multiple test cases is crucial.

def test_replaceDigits():
    assert replaceDigits("a1c1e1") == "abcdef"
    assert replaceDigits("a1b2c3d4e") == "abbdcfdhe"
    print("All test cases pass")

test_replaceDigits()

Conclusion

The “Replace All Digits with Characters” problem presents a useful exercise in string manipulation and character arithmetic. With Python’s versatile string processing capabilities, this problem becomes a playground for exploring various ways to approach it. While the problem may initially seem straightforward, it can offer deeper insights into how one can make their code more efficient and Pythonic.

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