Find smallest Substring to be rearranged to make String lexicographically sorted

Given a string S, the task is to find out the length of the smallest substring of S that needs to be rearranged so that all the characters of the string S are in lexicographical order.

Examples:

Input: S = “aabbace”
Output: 3
Explanation: Rearranging “bba” to be “abb”.
S becomes “aaabbce” which is in lexicographical order.

Input: S = “abez”
Output: 0

Approach: Follow the steps to solve the problem:

• Compare each character S[i] from 0 to N-2 with all it’s succeeding characters.
• Once we find a lexicographically smaller character than the previous one,  
  • We store the index of the last character in end if it’s index position is maximum and 
  • The preceding character in start if it’s index position is minimum and 
  • Also update ans which is our required string length that needs to be modified.
• Add 1 to the difference of end and start because it is 0-indexed.
• If the string is already arranged in lexicographical order, return 0.

Below is the implementation for the above approach:

C++

// C++ code for the above approach:
#include <bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;

int smallestsubstring(string s)
{
    int n = s.size(), ans = 0, start = INT_MAX, end = INT_MIN;
    for (int i = 0; i < n - 1; i++) {
        for (int j = i + 1; j < n; j++)
            if ((int)s[j] < (int)s[i]) {
                start = min(start, i);
                end = max(end, j);
                ans = end - start + 1;
            }
    }
    return ans;
}

// Drivers code
int main()
{
    string s = "aabbace";

    // Function Call
    cout << smallestsubstring(s);
    return 0;
}

Java

// JAVA code for the above approach:
import java.util.*;
class GFG {
    static int smallestsubstring(String s)
    {
        int n = s.length(), ans = 0,
            start = Integer.MAX_VALUE,
            end = Integer.MIN_VALUE;
        for (int i = 0; i < n - 1; i++) {
            for (int j = i + 1; j < n; j++)
                if ((int)s.charAt(j) < (int)s.charAt(i)) {
                    start = Math.min(start, i);
                    end = Math.max(end, j);
                    ans = end - start + 1;
                }
        }
        return ans;
    }

    // Drivers code
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        String s = "aabbace";

        // Function Call
        System.out.println(smallestsubstring(s));
    }
}

// This code is contributed by Taranpreet

Python3

# Python code for the above approach:
def smallestsubstring(s):
    n = len(s) 
    ans = 0
    start = 2147483647
    end = -2147483647 - 1
    for i in range(0,n-1):
        for j in range(i+1,n):
            if (s[j] < s[i]): 
                start = min(start, i)
                end = max(end, j)
                ans = end - start + 1
    return ans

# Drivers code
s = "aabbace"

# // Function Call
print(smallestsubstring(s))

# This code is contributed by ksam24000

C#

// C# code for the above approach:
using System;

public class GFG {
    static int smallestsubstring(String s)
    {
        int n = s.Length, ans = 0, start = Int32.MaxValue,
            end = Int32.MinValue;
        for (int i = 0; i < n - 1; i++) {
            for (int j = i + 1; j < n; j++)
                if ((int)s[j] < (int)s[i]) {
                    start = Math.Min(start, i);
                    end = Math.Max(end, j);
                    ans = end - start + 1;
                }
        }
        return ans;
    }

    // Drivers code
    static public void Main()
    {
        String s = "aabbace";

        // Function Call
        Console.WriteLine(smallestsubstring(s));
    }
}

// This code is contributed by Rohit Pradhan

Javascript

<script>
    // JavaScript code for the above approach

    function smallestsubstring(s)
    {
        let n = s.length, ans = 0,
            start = Number.MAX_VALUE;
            end = Number.MIN_VALUE
        for (let i = 0; i < n - 1; i++) {
            for (let j = i + 1; j < n; j++)
                if (s[j] < s[i]) {
                    start = Math.min(start, i);
                    end = Math.max(end, j);
                    ans = end - start + 1;
                }
        }
        return ans;
    }

    // Driver Function
        let s = "aabbace";

        // Function Call
        document.write(smallestsubstring(s));
    
    // This code is contributed by sanjoy_62.
</script>

Output

3

Time Complexity: O(N²)
Auxiliary Space: O(1)

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