# The k-th Lexicographical String of All Happy Strings of Length n in C++

C++Server Side ProgrammingProgramming

Suppose we have a string. We will call that a happy string when it consists of only ['a', 'b', 'c'] letters, and s[i] != s[i + 1] for all values of i from 1 to length of s - 1 (here the string is 1-indexed).

So, if we have two integers n and k, consider a list of all happy strings of length n sorted in lexicographical order. We have to find the the kth string of this list or return an empty string if there are less than k happy strings of length n

So, if the input is like n = 3 and k = 9, then the output will be "cab", there are 12 different happy strings, these are ["aba", "abc", "aca", "acb", "bab", "bac", "bca", "bcb", "cab", "cac", "cba", "cbc"], the 9th one is "cab".

To solve this, we will follow these steps −

• Define an array ret

• Define a function solve(), this will take s, l initialize it with 1,

• if l is same as x, then −

• insert s at the end of ret

• return

• for initialize i := 0, when i < 3, update (increase i by 1), do −

• if last element of s is not equal to c[i], then −

• solve(s + c[i], l + 1)

• From the main method, do the following −

• x := n

• if n is same as 0, then −

• return empty string

• solve("a")

• solve("b")

• solve("c")

• sort the array ret

• return (if k > size of ret, then blank string, otherwise ret[k - 1])

## Example

Let us see the following implementation to get a better understanding −

Live Demo

#include <bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;
struct Cmp{
bool operator()(string& a, string& b) {
return !(a < b);
}
};
char c[3] = {'a', 'b', 'c'};
class Solution {
public:
vector<string> ret;
int x;
void solve(string s, int l = 1){
if (l == x) {
ret.push_back(s);
return;
}
for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
if (s.back() != c[i]) {
solve(s + c[i], l + 1);
}
}
}
string getHappyString(int n, int k){
x = n;
if (n == 0)
return "";
solve("a");
solve("b");
solve("c");
sort(ret.begin(), ret.end());
return k > ret.size() ? "" : ret[k - 1];
}
};
main(){
Solution ob;
cout << (ob.getHappyString(3,9));
}

## Input

3,9

## Output

cab
Published on 17-Nov-2020 11:55:58