Check whether two strings are equivalent or not according to given condition

Difficulty Level : Easy
Last Updated : 11 Aug, 2021

Given two strings A and B of equal size. Two strings are equivalent either of the following conditions hold true:
1) They both are equal. Or,
2) If we divide the string A into two contiguous substrings of same size A₁ and A₂ and string B into two contiguous substrings of same size B₁ and B₂, then one of the following should be correct:

A₁ is recursively equivalent to B₁ and A₂ is recursively equivalent to B₂
A₁ is recursively equivalent to B₂ and A₂ is recursively equivalent to B₁

Check whether given strings are equivalent or not. Print YES or NO.
Examples:

Input : A = “aaba”, B = “abaa”
Output : YES
Explanation : Since condition 1 doesn’t hold true, we can divide string A into “aaba” = “aa” + “ba” and string B into “abaa” = “ab” + “aa”. Here, 2^nd subcondition holds true where A₁ is equal to B₂ and A₂ is recursively equal to B₁
Input : A = “aabb”, B = “abab”
Output : NO

Naive Solution : A simple solution is to consider all possible scenarios. Check first if the both strings are equal return “YES”, otherwise divide the strings and check if A₁ = B₁ and A₂ = B₂ or A₁ = B₂ and A₂ = B₁ by using four recursive calls. Complexity of this solution would be O(n²), where n is the size of the string.
Efficient Solution : Let’s define following operation on string S. We can divide it into two halves and if we want we can swap them. And also, we can recursively apply this operation to both of its halves. By careful observation, we can see that if after applying the operation on some string A, we can obtain B, then after applying the operation on B we can obtain A. And for the given two strings, we can recursively find the least lexicographically string that can be obtained from them. Those obtained strings if are equal, answer is YES, otherwise NO. For example, least lexicographically string for “aaba” is “aaab”. And least lexicographically string for “abaa” is also “aaab”. Hence both of these are equivalent.
Below is the implementation of the above approach.

C++

// CPP Program to find whether two strings
// are equivalent or not according to given
// condition
#include <bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;
 
// This function returns the least lexicogr
// aphical string obtained from its two halves
string leastLexiString(string s)
{
    // Base Case - If string size is 1
    if (s.size() & 1)
        return s;
 
    // Divide the string into its two halves
    string x = leastLexiString(s.substr(0,
                                        s.size() / 2));
    string y = leastLexiString(s.substr(s.size() / 2));
 
    // Form least lexicographical string
    return min(x + y, y + x);
}
 
bool areEquivalent(string a, string b)
{
  return (leastLexiString(a) == leastLexiString(b));
}
 
// Driver Code
int main()
{
    string a = "aaba";
    string b = "abaa";
    if (areEquivalent(a, b))
        cout << "YES" << endl;
    else
        cout << "NO" << endl;
 
    a = "aabb";
    b = "abab";
    if (areEquivalent(a, b))
        cout << "YES" << endl;
    else
        cout << "NO" << endl;
    return 0;
}

Java

// Java Program to find whether two strings
// are equivalent or not according to given
// condition
class GfG
{
 
// This function returns the least lexicogr
// aphical String obtained from its two halves
static String leastLexiString(String s)
{
    // Base Case - If String size is 1
    if (s.length() == 1)
        return s;
 
    // Divide the String into its two halves
    String x = leastLexiString(s.substring(0,
                                        s.length() / 2));
    String y = leastLexiString(s.substring(s.length() / 2));
 
    // Form least lexicographical String
    return String.valueOf((x + y).compareTo(y + x));
}
 
static boolean areEquivalent(String a, String b)
{
    return !(leastLexiString(a).equals(leastLexiString(b)));
}
 
// Driver Code
public static void main(String[] args)
{
    String a = "aaba";
    String b = "abaa";
    if (areEquivalent(a, b))
        System.out.println("Yes");
    else
        System.out.println("No");
 
    a = "aabb";
    b = "abab";
    if (areEquivalent(a, b))
        System.out.println("Yes");
    else
        System.out.println("No");
    }
}
 
/* This code contributed by PrinciRaj1992 */

Python3

# Python 3 Program to find whether two strings
# are equivalent or not according to given
# condition
 
# This function returns the least lexicogr
# aphical string obtained from its two halves
def leastLexiString(s):
     
    # Base Case - If string size is 1
    if (len(s) & 1 != 0):
        return s
 
    # Divide the string into its two halves
    x = leastLexiString(s[0:int(len(s) / 2)])
    y = leastLexiString(s[int(len(s) / 2):len(s)])
 
    # Form least lexicographical string
    return min(x + y, y + x)
 
def areEquivalent(a,b):
    return (leastLexiString(a) == leastLexiString(b))
 
# Driver Code
if __name__ == '__main__':
    a = "aaba"
    b = "abaa"
    if (areEquivalent(a, b)):
        print("YES")
    else:
        print("NO")
 
    a = "aabb"
    b = "abab"
    if (areEquivalent(a, b)):
        print("YES")
    else:
        print("NO")
 
# This code is contributed by
# Surendra_Gangwar

C#

// C# Program to find whether two strings
// are equivalent or not according to given
// condition
using System;
class GFG
{
 
// This function returns the least lexicogr-
// aphical String obtained from its two halves
static String leastLexiString(String s)
{
    // Base Case - If String size is 1
    if (s.Length == 1)
        return s;
 
    // Divide the String into its two halves
    String x = leastLexiString(s.Substring(0,
                               s.Length / 2));
    String y = leastLexiString(s.Substring(
                               s.Length / 2));
 
    // Form least lexicographical String
    return ((x + y).CompareTo(y + x).ToString());
}
 
static Boolean areEquivalent(String a, String b)
{
    return !(leastLexiString(a).Equals(
             leastLexiString(b)));
}
 
// Driver Code
public static void Main(String[] args)
{
    String a = "aaba";
    String b = "abaa";
    if (areEquivalent(a, b))
        Console.WriteLine("YES");
    else
        Console.WriteLine("NO");
 
    a = "aabb";
    b = "abab";
    if (areEquivalent(a, b))
        Console.WriteLine("YES");
    else
        Console.WriteLine("NO");
}
}
 
// This code is contributed by PrinciRaj1992

PHP

<?php
// PHP Program to find whether two strings
// are equivalent or not according to given
// condition
 
// This function returns the least lexicogr
// aphical string obtained from its two halves
function leastLexiString($s)
{
    // Base Case - If string size is 1
    if (strlen($s) & 1)
        return $s;
 
    // Divide the string into its two halves
    $x = leastLexiString(substr($s, 0,floor(strlen($s) / 2)));
    $y = leastLexiString(substr($s,floor(strlen($s) / 2),strlen($s)));
 
    // Form least lexicographical string
    return min($x.$y, $y.$x);
}
 
function areEquivalent($a, $b)
{
    return (leastLexiString($a) == leastLexiString($b));
}
 
    // Driver Code
    $a = "aaba";
    $b = "abaa";
    if (areEquivalent($a, $b))
        echo "YES", "\n";
    else
        echo "NO", "\n";
 
    $a = "aabb";
    $b = "abab";
    if (areEquivalent($a, $b))
        echo "YES", "\n";
    else
        echo "NO","\n";
 
// This code is contributed by Ryuga
?>

Output:

YES
NO

Time Complexity: O(N*logN), where N is the size of the string.
Auxiliary Space: O(logN)

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