[LeetCode] 1754. Largest Merge Of Two Strings

You are given two strings word1 and word2. You want to construct a string merge in the following way: while either word1 or word2 are non-empty, choose one of the following options:

• If word1 is non-empty, append the first character in word1 to merge and delete it from word1.
  • For example, if word1 = "abc" and merge = "dv", then after choosing this operation, word1 = "bc" and merge = "dva".
• If word2 is non-empty, append the first character in word2 to merge and delete it from word2.
  • For example, if word2 = "abc" and merge = "", then after choosing this operation, word2 = "bc" and merge = "a".

Return the lexicographically largest merge you can construct.

A string a is lexicographically larger than a string b (of the same length) if in the first position where a and b differ, a has a character strictly larger than the corresponding character in b. For example, "abcd" is lexicographically larger than "abcc" because the first position they differ is at the fourth character, and d is greater than c.

Example 1:

Input: word1 = "cabaa", word2 = "bcaaa"
Output: "cbcabaaaaa"
Explanation: One way to get the lexicographically largest merge is:
- Take from word1: merge = "c", word1 = "abaa", word2 = "bcaaa"
- Take from word2: merge = "cb", word1 = "abaa", word2 = "caaa"
- Take from word2: merge = "cbc", word1 = "abaa", word2 = "aaa"
- Take from word1: merge = "cbca", word1 = "baa", word2 = "aaa"
- Take from word1: merge = "cbcab", word1 = "aa", word2 = "aaa"
- Append the remaining 5 a's from word1 and word2 at the end of merge.

Example 2:

Input: word1 = "abcabc", word2 = "abdcaba"
Output: "abdcabcabcaba"

Constraints:

• 1 <= word1.length, word2.length <= 3000
• word1 and word2 consist only of lowercase English letters.

构造字典序最大的合并字符串。

给你两个字符串 word1 和 word2 。你需要按下述方式构造一个新字符串 merge ：如果 word1 或 word2 非空，选择 下面选项之一 继续操作：

如果 word1 非空，将 word1 中的第一个字符附加到 merge 的末尾，并将其从 word1 中移除。
例如，word1 = "abc" 且 merge = "dv" ，在执行此选项操作之后，word1 = "bc" ，同时 merge = "dva" 。
如果 word2 非空，将 word2 中的第一个字符附加到 merge 的末尾，并将其从 word2 中移除。
例如，word2 = "abc" 且 merge = "" ，在执行此选项操作之后，word2 = "bc" ，同时 merge = "a" 。
返回你可以构造的字典序 最大 的合并字符串 merge 。

长度相同的两个字符串 a 和 b 比较字典序大小，如果在 a 和 b 出现不同的第一个位置，a 中字符在字母表中的出现顺序位于 b 中相应字符之后，就认为字符串 a 按字典序比字符串 b 更大。例如，"abcd" 按字典序比 "abcc" 更大，因为两个字符串出现不同的第一个位置是第四个字符，而 d 在字母表中的出现顺序位于 c 之后。

来源：力扣（LeetCode）
链接：https://leetcode.cn/problems/largest-merge-of-two-strings
著作权归领扣网络所有。商业转载请联系官方授权，非商业转载请注明出处。

思路是双指针 + 贪心。题目最终的目的是要构造字典序最大的合并字符串，所以我们需要分类讨论

时间O(m + n)

空间O(n) - return string

Java实现

 1 class Solution {
 2     public String largestMerge(String word1, String word2) {
 3         StringBuilder merge = new StringBuilder();
 4         int i = 0, j = 0;
 5         while (i < word1.length() || j < word2.length()) {
 6             if (i < word1.length() && word1.substring(i).compareTo(word2.substring(j)) > 0) {
 7                 merge.append(word1.charAt(i));
 8                 i++;
 9             } else {
10                 merge.append(word2.charAt(j));
11                 j++;
12             }
13         }
14         return merge.toString();
15     }
16 }

LeetCode 题目总结