Find longest palindrome formed by removing or shuffling chars from string
Last Updated :
04 Jul, 2022
Given a string, find the longest palindrome that can be constructed by removing or shuffling characters from the string. Return only one palindrome if there are multiple palindrome strings of longest length.
Examples:
Input: abc
Output: a OR b OR c
Input: aabbcc
Output: abccba OR baccab OR cbaabc OR
any other palindromic string of length 6.
Input: abbaccd
Output: abcdcba OR ...
Input: aba
Output: aba
We can divide any palindromic string into three parts - beg, mid and end. For palindromic string of odd length say 2n + 1, 'beg' consists of first n characters of the string, 'mid' will consist of only 1 character i.e. (n + 1)th character and 'end' will consists of last n characters of the palindromic string. For palindromic string of even length 2n, 'mid' will always be empty. It should be noted that 'end' will be reverse of 'beg' in order for string to be palindrome.
The idea is to use above observation in our solution. As shuffling of characters is allowed, order of characters doesn't matter in the input string. We first get frequency of each character in the input string. Then all characters having even occurrence (say 2n) in the input string will be part of the output string as we can easily place n characters in 'beg' string and the other n characters in the 'end' string (by preserving the palindromic order). For characters having odd occurrence (say 2n + 1), we fill 'mid' with one of all such characters. and remaining 2n characters are divided in halves and added at beginning and end.
Below is the implementation of above idea
C++
// C++ program to find the longest palindrome by removing
// or shuffling characters from the given string
#include <bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;
// Function to find the longest palindrome by removing
// or shuffling characters from the given string
string findLongestPalindrome(string str)
{
// to stores freq of characters in a string
int count[256] = { 0 };
// find freq of characters in the input string
for (int i = 0; i < str.size(); i++)
count[str[i]]++;
// Any palindromic string consists of three parts
// beg + mid + end
string beg = "", mid = "", end = "";
// solution assumes only lowercase characters are
// present in string. We can easily extend this
// to consider any set of characters
for (char ch = 'a'; ch <= 'z'; ch++)
{
// if the current character freq is odd
if (count[ch] & 1)
{
// mid will contain only 1 character. It
// will be overridden with next character
// with odd freq
mid = ch;
// decrement the character freq to make
// it even and consider current character
// again
count[ch--]--;
}
// if the current character freq is even
else
{
// If count is n(an even number), push
// n/2 characters to beg string and rest
// n/2 characters will form part of end
// string
for (int i = 0; i < count[ch]/2 ; i++)
beg.push_back(ch);
}
}
// end will be reverse of beg
end = beg;
reverse(end.begin(), end.end());
// return palindrome string
return beg + mid + end;
}
// Driver code
int main()
{
string str = "abbaccd";
cout << findLongestPalindrome(str);
return 0;
}
// Java program to find the longest palindrome by removing
// or shuffling characters from the given string
class GFG {
// Function to find the longest palindrome by removing
// or shuffling characters from the given string
static String findLongestPalindrome(String str) {
// to stores freq of characters in a string
int count[] = new int[256];
// find freq of characters in the input string
for (int i = 0; i < str.length(); i++) {
count[str.charAt(i)]++;
}
// Any palindromic string consists of three parts
// beg + mid + end
String beg = "", mid = "", end = "";
// solution assumes only lowercase characters are
// present in string. We can easily extend this
// to consider any set of characters
for (char ch = 'a'; ch <= 'z'; ch++) {
// if the current character freq is odd
if (count[ch] % 2 == 1) {
// mid will contain only 1 character. It
// will be overridden with next character
// with odd freq
mid = String.valueOf(ch);
// decrement the character freq to make
// it even and consider current character
// again
count[ch--]--;
} // if the current character freq is even
else {
// If count is n(an even number), push
// n/2 characters to beg string and rest
// n/2 characters will form part of end
// string
for (int i = 0; i < count[ch] / 2; i++) {
beg += ch;
}
}
}
// end will be reverse of beg
end = beg;
end = reverse(end);
// return palindrome string
return beg + mid + end;
}
static String reverse(String str) {
// convert String to character array
// by using toCharArray
String ans = "";
char[] try1 = str.toCharArray();
for (int i = try1.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
ans += try1[i];
}
return ans;
}
// Driver code
public static void main(String[] args) {
String str = "abbaccd";
System.out.println(findLongestPalindrome(str));
}
}
// This code is contributed by PrinciRaj1992
# Python3 program to find the longest palindrome by removing
# or shuffling characters from the given string
# Function to find the longest palindrome by removing
# or shuffling characters from the given string
def findLongestPalindrome(strr):
# to stores freq of characters in a string
count = [0]*256
# find freq of characters in the input string
for i in range(len(strr)):
count[ord(strr[i])] += 1
# Any palindromic consists of three parts
# beg + mid + end
beg = ""
mid = ""
end = ""
# solution assumes only lowercase characters are
# present in string. We can easily extend this
# to consider any set of characters
ch = ord('a')
while ch <= ord('z'):
# if the current character freq is odd
if (count[ch] & 1):
# mid will contain only 1 character. It
# will be overridden with next character
# with odd freq
mid = ch
# decrement the character freq to make
# it even and consider current character
# again
count[ch] -= 1
ch -= 1
# if the current character freq is even
else:
# If count is n(an even number), push
# n/2 characters to beg and rest
# n/2 characters will form part of end
# string
for i in range(count[ch]//2):
beg += chr(ch)
ch += 1
# end will be reverse of beg
end = beg
end = end[::-1]
# return palindrome string
return beg + chr(mid) + end
# Driver code
strr = "abbaccd"
print(findLongestPalindrome(strr))
# This code is contributed by mohit kumar 29
// C# program to find the longest
// palindrome by removing or
// shuffling characters from
// the given string
using System;
class GFG
{
// Function to find the longest
// palindrome by removing or
// shuffling characters from
// the given string
static String findLongestPalindrome(String str)
{
// to stores freq of characters in a string
int []count = new int[256];
// find freq of characters
// in the input string
for (int i = 0; i < str.Length; i++)
{
count[str[i]]++;
}
// Any palindromic string consists of
// three parts beg + mid + end
String beg = "", mid = "", end = "";
// solution assumes only lowercase
// characters are present in string.
// We can easily extend this to
// consider any set of characters
for (char ch = 'a'; ch <= 'z'; ch++)
{
// if the current character freq is odd
if (count[ch] % 2 == 1)
{
// mid will contain only 1 character.
// It will be overridden with next
// character with odd freq
mid = String.Join("",ch);
// decrement the character freq to make
// it even and consider current
// character again
count[ch--]--;
}
// if the current character freq is even
else
{
// If count is n(an even number), push
// n/2 characters to beg string and rest
// n/2 characters will form part of end
// string
for (int i = 0; i < count[ch] / 2; i++)
{
beg += ch;
}
}
}
// end will be reverse of beg
end = beg;
end = reverse(end);
// return palindrome string
return beg + mid + end;
}
static String reverse(String str)
{
// convert String to character array
// by using toCharArray
String ans = "";
char[] try1 = str.ToCharArray();
for (int i = try1.Length - 1; i >= 0; i--)
{
ans += try1[i];
}
return ans;
}
// Driver code
public static void Main()
{
String str = "abbaccd";
Console.WriteLine(findLongestPalindrome(str));
}
}
// This code is contributed by 29AjayKumar
<script>
// Javascript program to find the
// longest palindrome by removing
// or shuffling characters from
// the given string
// Function to find the longest
// palindrome by removing
// or shuffling characters from
// the given string
function findLongestPalindrome(str)
{
// to stores freq of characters
// in a string
let count = new Array(256);
for(let i=0;i<256;i++)
{
count[i]=0;
}
// find freq of characters in
// the input string
for (let i = 0; i < str.length; i++) {
count[str[i].charCodeAt(0)]++;
}
// Any palindromic string consists
// of three parts
// beg + mid + end
let beg = "", mid = "", end = "";
// solution assumes only
// lowercase characters are
// present in string.
// We can easily extend this
// to consider any set of characters
for (let ch = 'a'.charCodeAt(0);
ch <= 'z'.charCodeAt(0); ch++) {
// if the current character freq is odd
if (count[ch] % 2 == 1) {
// mid will contain only 1 character. It
// will be overridden with next character
// with odd freq
mid = String.fromCharCode(ch);
// decrement the character freq to make
// it even and consider current character
// again
count[ch--]--;
} // if the current character freq is even
else {
// If count is n(an even number), push
// n/2 characters to beg string and rest
// n/2 characters will form part of end
// string
for (let i = 0; i < count[ch] / 2; i++)
{
beg += String.fromCharCode(ch);
}
}
}
// end will be reverse of beg
end = beg;
end = reverse(end);
// return palindrome string
return beg + mid + end;
}
function reverse(str)
{
// convert String to character array
// by using toCharArray
let ans = "";
let try1 = str.split("");
for (let i = try1.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
ans += try1[i];
}
return ans;
}
// Driver code
let str = "abbaccd";
document.write(findLongestPalindrome(str));
// This code is contributed by unknown2108
</script>
Time complexity of above solution is O(n) where n is length of the string. Since, number of characters in the alphabet is constant, they do not contribute to asymptotic analysis.
Auxiliary space used by the program is M where M is number of ASCII characters.
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