Determine if Two Strings Are Close

Category

Hash Map / Set

Checkbox

Difficulty

Medium

Index

Key Ideas

The key idea to solve this problem is to compare the frequency of characters in two strings and check if they can be transformed into each other by performing a limited number of operations.

Problem Number

1657

Problem Summary

The problem number 1657 in the LeetCode-75 curated list is "Determine if Two Strings Are Close." This problem involves comparing two strings to determine if they are "close" based on certain conditions. Some key pitfalls to watch out for include properly understanding the definition of "close," handling edge cases with empty strings, and efficiently checking for character frequency and order.

Solution Summary

The best solution to solve the "Determine if Two Strings Are Close" problem involves counting the frequency of characters in both strings. By comparing the character frequencies, we can determine if the two strings are close. The solution includes two steps: first, counting the character frequencies in both strings using two separate hash maps; second, comparing the frequencies to check if they are the same. If the frequencies match, the strings are close; otherwise, they are not close. This approach has a time complexity of O(n), where n is the length of the strings.