- Difficulty: Hard
- Tags: LeetCode, Hard, Two Pointers, String, Dynamic Programming, leetcode-2911, O(n^3), O(n^2 * logn), Number Theory, DP
Problem
Given a string s
and an integer k
, partition s
into k
substrings such that the letter changes needed to make each substring a semi-palindrome are minimized.
Return the minimum number of letter changes required.
A semi-palindrome is a special type of string that can be divided into palindromes based on a repeating pattern. To check if a string is a semi-palindrome:
- Choose a positive divisor
d
of the string's length.d
can range from1
up to, but not including, the string's length. For a string of length1
, it does not have a valid divisor as per this definition, since the only divisor is its length, which is not allowed. - For a given divisor
d
, divide the string into groups where each group contains characters from the string that follow a repeating pattern of lengthd
. Specifically, the first group consists of characters at positions1
,1 + d
,1 + 2d
, and so on; the second group includes characters at positions2
,2 + d
,2 + 2d
, etc. - The string is considered a semi-palindrome if each of these groups forms a palindrome.
Consider the string "abcabc"
:
- The length of
"abcabc"
is6
. Valid divisors are1
,2
, and3
. - For
d = 1
: The entire string"abcabc"
forms one group. Not a palindrome. - For
d = 2
:- Group 1 (positions
1, 3, 5
):"acb"
- Group 2 (positions
2, 4, 6
):"bac"
- Neither group forms a palindrome.
- Group 1 (positions
- For
d = 3
:- Group 1 (positions
1, 4
):"aa"
- Group 2 (positions
2, 5
):"bb"
- Group 3 (positions
3, 6
):"cc"
- All groups form palindromes. Therefore,
"abcabc"
is a semi-palindrome.
- Group 1 (positions
Example 1:
Input: s = "abcac", k = 2
Output: 1
Explanation: Divide s
into "ab"
and "cac"
. "cac"
is already semi-palindrome. Change "ab"
to "aa"
, it becomes semi-palindrome with d = 1
.
Example 2:
Input: s = "abcdef", k = 2
Output: 2
Explanation: Divide s
into substrings "abc"
and "def"
. Each needs one change to become semi-palindrome.
Example 3:
Input: s = "aabbaa", k = 3
Output: 0
Explanation: Divide s
into substrings "aa"
, "bb"
and "aa"
. All are already semi-palindromes.
Constraints:
2 <= s.length <= 200
1 <= k <= s.length / 2
s
contains only lowercase English letters.