Replace And Remove

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Problem Statement

• Replace each ‘a’ with ‘dd’
• Delete each ‘b’

Solution

package problems;

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.Set;

/**
 * Remove 'b's and replace 'a's with 'dd'
 */
public class ReplaceAndRemove {
    private static final Set<Character> ALPHABET = new HashSet<Character>(Arrays.asList('a', 'b', 'c', 'd'));

    private static int endIndex(char[] s) {
        for (int i = 0; i < s.length; i++) {
            if (!ALPHABET.contains(s[i])) {
                return i - 1;
            }
        }

        return s.length - 1;
    }


    private static char[] solve(char[] s) {
        int countA = 0;
        int writeIndex = 0;
        for (int i = 0; i < s.length; i++) {
            if (s[i] == 'a') {
                countA++;
            }

            if (s[i] != 'b') {
                s[writeIndex++] = s[i];
            }
        }

        int newLen = ((endIndex(s) + 1) - countA) + 2 * countA;

        writeIndex = newLen - 1;
        int readIndex = endIndex(s);
        while (readIndex >= 0) {
            if (s[readIndex] == 'a') {
                s[writeIndex--] = 'd';
                s[writeIndex--] = 'd';
            } else {
                s[writeIndex--] = s[readIndex];
            }

            readIndex--;
        }

        // Clean any remaining chars
        for (int i = newLen; i < s.length; i++) {
            s[i] = Character.MIN_VALUE;
        }

        return s;
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        char[] s = Arrays.copyOf("bca".toCharArray(), 16);

        System.out.println(new String(solve(s)));
    }
}