Minimum Changes to Make K Semi-palindromes(LeetCode 2911):

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:​

  1. Choose a positive divisor d of the string's length. d can range from 1 up to, but not including, the string's length. For a string of length 1, it does not have a valid divisor as per this definition, since the only divisor is its length, which is not allowed.
  2. For a given divisor d, divide the string into groups where each group contains characters from the string that follow a repeating pattern of length d. Specifically, the first group consists of characters at positions 1, 1 + d, 1 + 2d, and so on; the second group includes characters at positions 2, 2 + d, 2 + 2d, etc.
  3. The string is considered a semi-palindrome if each of these groups forms a palindrome.

Consider the string "abcabc":

  • The length of "abcabc" is 6. Valid divisors are 1, 2, and 3.
  • 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.
  • 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.

 

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.