Maximum count of characters that can replace ? by at most A 0s and B 1s with no adjacent duplicates

The aim of this article is to implement a program maximum count of characters that can replace? by at most A 0s and B 1s with no adjacent duplicates.

Given a couple of integers A and B, both of which that represent the number of 0s and 1s that are accessible, and a string Str with only the special characters "*" and "?" The aim is to determine the greatest number of characters that may be used in the '?' position without causing any neighboring characters to be identical.

Example 1

Let us give the input string str = “*??*??*”, A = 5, B = 2
Output obtained is : 4

Explanation

You can change the string to "*01*01*". Therefore, (2 + 2 = 4) characters are the most that can be used in the location of "?"

Example 2

Let us give the input string str = “*??*???*”, A = 5, B = 0
Output obtained is : 3

Explanation

You can change the string to "*0?*0?0*". Therefore, (1 + 2 = 3) characters are the most that can be used in the location of "?"

Example 3

Let us give the input string str = “*??*??*”, A = 0, B = 2
Output obtained is : 2

Explanation

You can change the string to "*?1*?1*". Therefore, (1 + 1 = 2) characters are the most that can be used in the location of "?"

Problem Statement

Implement a program to find Maximum count of characters that can replace ? by at most A 0s and B 1s with no adjacent duplicates

Algorithm

The algorithm to find the Maximum count of characters that can replace ? by at most A 0s and B 1s with no adjacent duplicates given below −

• Step 1 − Define a Function to determine the maximum count of characters "A" and "B," which can fit in the position of "?"

• Step 2 − Define a string str and the variable l is defined as the size or length of the string.

• Step 3 − Define an integer variable current.

  The variable current is defined to Store the current or the present count of '?'s and it //is set to zero

• Step 4 − Define an array segLengths[] in order to store the lengths of adjacent segments of '?'s

• Step 5 − Traverse the string and check if the character is ‘?’. If so then, increment the current variable by 1

• Step 6 − check whether current is equal to 0 or not. If not, then we have to re-initialize the current variable to zero

• Step 7 − Define an integer Variable for storing the maximum count

• Step 8 − define an integer variable "halfX" to store half of each elements in the array named segLengths[]

• Step 9 − define an integer variable "halfY" to store half of each element with its remainder

• Step 10 − If aCount is greater than bCount, then increment the maxCount by minimum of aCount and halfX

• Step 11 − Update the aCount

• Step 12 − Increment the maxCount by minimum of bCount and halfY

• Step 13 − Update the bCount

• Step 14 − Return the maxCount obtained

Example (C Program)

Here is the C program implementation of the above written algorithm to find the maximum count of characters that can replace ? by at most A 0s and B 1s with no adjacent duplicates.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int maximumChar(char *str, int aCount, int bCount){
   int l = strlen(str);
   int current = 0;
   int segLengths[100];
   int segCount = 0;
   for (int i = 0; i < l; i++)   {
      if (str[i] == '?') {
         current++;
      } else {
         if (current != 0) {
            segLengths[segCount++] = current;
            current= 0;
         }
      }
   }
   if (current != 0) {
      segLengths[segCount++] = current;
   }
   int maxCount = 0;
   for (int i = 0; i < segCount; i++)  {
      int halfX = segLengths[i] / 2;
      int halfY = segLengths[i] / 2 + segLengths[i] % 2;
      if (aCount > bCount) {
         int temp = aCount;
         aCount = bCount;
         bCount = temp;
      }
      maxCount += (aCount < halfX ? aCount : halfX);
      aCount -= (aCount < halfX ? aCount : halfX);
      maxCount += (bCount < halfY ? bCount : halfY);
      bCount -= (bCount < halfY ? bCount : halfY);
   }
   return maxCount;
}
int main(){
   char str[] = "*??*??*";
   int aCount = 5, bCount = 2;
   printf("%d
", maximumChar(str, aCount, bCount));
   return 0;
}

Output

On execution, it will produce the following output −

4

Conclusion

Likewise we can find the Maximum count of characters that can replace ? by at most A 0s and B 1s with no adjacent duplicates. The challenge of obtaining the program to find the Maximum count of characters that can replace ? by at most A 0s and B 1s with no adjacent duplicates" is resolved in this article. Here C programming code as well as the algorithm to find the Maximum count of characters that can replace ? by at most A 0s and B 1s with no adjacent duplicatesare provided.