Connection Status:
Competition Arena > BadSubstring
SRM 178 · 2004-01-07 · by brett1479 · Dynamic Programming
Class Name: BadSubstring
Return Type: long
Method Name: howMany
Arg Types: (int)
Problem Statement

Problem Statement

Return how many strings containing length characters do not have the substring (quotes for clarity) "ab". The only characters allowed in the strings are 'a', 'b', and 'c'. A substring is any contiguous portion of a string. A substring may be empty, or the entire string.

Constraints

  • length will be between 0 and 44 inclusive.
Examples
0)
0
Returns: 1

The only string of length 0 is the empty string, and it doesn't have "ab" as a substring.

1)
3
Returns: 21

There are 3*3*3=27 possible strings of length 3. 3 begin with ab, and 3 end with ab. The remaining 21 are all good.

2)
29
Returns: 1548008755920
3)
0
Returns: 1
4)
1
Returns: 3

Submissions are judged against all 56 archived test cases, of which 5 are shown here. Case numbers match the judge’s.

Coding Area

Language: C++17 · define a public class BadSubstring with a public method long long howMany(int length) · 56 test cases · 2 s / 256 MB per case

Submitting as anonymous