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1433. Check If a String Can Break Another String

Difficulty Topics

Description

Given two strings: s1 and s2 with the same size, check if some permutation of string s1 can break some permutation of string s2 or vice-versa. In other words s2 can break s1 or vice-versa.

A string x can break string y (both of size n) if x[i] >= y[i] (in alphabetical order) for all i between 0 and n-1.

 

Example 1:

Input: s1 = "abc", s2 = "xya"
Output: true
Explanation: "ayx" is a permutation of s2="xya" which can break to string "abc" which is a permutation of s1="abc".

Example 2:

Input: s1 = "abe", s2 = "acd"
Output: false 
Explanation: All permutations for s1="abe" are: "abe", "aeb", "bae", "bea", "eab" and "eba" and all permutation for s2="acd" are: "acd", "adc", "cad", "cda", "dac" and "dca". However, there is not any permutation from s1 which can break some permutation from s2 and vice-versa.

Example 3:

Input: s1 = "leetcodee", s2 = "interview"
Output: true

 

Constraints:

  • s1.length == n
  • s2.length == n
  • 1 <= n <= 10^5
  • All strings consist of lowercase English letters.

Solution

check-if-a-string-can-break-another-string.py
class Solution:
    def checkIfCanBreak(self, s1: str, s2: str) -> bool:

        def check(d1, d2):
            s = 0
            for c in "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz":
                s += d1[c] - d2[c]
                if s < 0:
                    return False

            return True

        d1 = collections.Counter(s1)
        d2 = collections.Counter(s2)

        return check(d1,d2) or check(d2,d1)