Make the string lexicographically smallest and non palindromic by replacing exactly one character

Given a palindromic string str containing only lowercase letters, the task is to print the lexicographically smallest string, by replacing exactly one character, such the string is not a palindrome.

Examples:

Input: str = “abccba” 
Output: “aaccba” 
Explanation:
Lexicographically smallest non-palindromic string possible is “aaccba”, here we have replaced the second letter ‘b’ by an ‘a’ which makes it a non palindrome.

Input: str = “a” 
Output: -1 
Explanation:
A single character is always a palindrome hence we cannot replace the value. Therefore the output is -1. 

Approach: To solve the problem mentioned above we will check only half of the string and replace all characters which are not ‘a’ to the character ‘a’ itself. The edge case for the question is if there is only one character, we will return an empty string. Otherwise, if all the characters are the same then we will replace the last character only with character ‘b’.

Below is the implementation of the above approach:

C++

// C++ program to make the string
// lexicographically smallest non
// palindromic string by replacing
// exactly one character

#include <bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;

// Function to find the required string
string findStr(string S)
{
    // length of the string
    int n = S.size();

    // Iterate till half of the string
    for (int i = 0; i < n / 2; ++i) {

        // replacing a non 'a' char with 'a'
        if (S[i] != 'a') {
            S[i] = 'a';

            return S;
        }
    }

    // Check if there is no 'a' in string
    // we replace last char of string by 'b'
    S[n - 1] = 'b';

    // If the input is a single character
    return n < 2 ? " -1 " : S;
}

// Driver code
int main()
{
    string str = "a";
    cout << findStr(str) << endl;

    string str1 = "abccba";
    cout << findStr(str1) << endl;

    return 0;
}

Java

// Java program to make the string
// lexicographically smallest non
// palindromic string by replacing
// exactly one character
import java.util.*;
class GFG {

// Function to find the required string
static String findStr(String S)
{
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(S);

    // length of the string
    int n = sb.length();

    // Iterate till half of the string
    for (int i = 0; i < n / 2; ++i)
    {

        // replacing a non 'a' char with 'a'
        if (sb.charAt(i) != 'a')
        {
            sb.setCharAt(i, 'a');

            return sb.toString();
        }
    }

    // Check if there is no 'a' in string
    // we replace last char of string by 'b'
    sb.setCharAt(n - 1, 'b');

    // If the input is a single character
    return n < 2 ? " -1 " : sb.toString();
}

// Driver code
public static void main(String[] args)
{
    String str = "a";
    System.out.println(findStr(str));

    String str1 = "abccba";
    System.out.println(findStr(str1));
}
}

// This code is contributed by offbeat

Python3

# Python3 program to make the string
# lexicographically smallest non
# palindromic string by replacing
# exactly one character

# Function to find the required string
def findStr(S):

    S = list(S)

    # Length of the string
    n = len(S)

    # Iterate till half of the string
    for i in range(0, n // 2):

        # Replacing a non 'a' char with 'a'
        if S[i] != 'a':
            S[i] = 'a'
            return (''.join(S))

    # Check if there is no 'a' in string
    # we replace last char of string by 'b'
    S[n - 1] = 'b'

    # If the input is a single character
    if n < 2:
        return '-1'
    else:
        return (''.join(S))

# Driver Code
if __name__=='__main__':

    str1 = 'a'
    print(findStr(str1))

    str2 = 'abccba'
    print(findStr(str2))

# This code is contributed by rutvik_56

C#

// C# program to make the string
// lexicographically smallest non
// palindromic string by replacing
// exactly one character
using System;

class GFG{

// Function to find the required string
static String findStr(char []S)
{

    // Length of the string
    int n = S.Length;

    // Iterate till half of the string
    for(int i = 0; i < n / 2; ++i)
    {

       // Replacing a non 'a' char with 'a'
       if (S[i] != 'a')
       {
           S[i] = 'a';
           return new String(S);
       }
    }

    // Check if there is no 'a' in string
    // we replace last char of string by 'b'
    S[n - 1] = 'b';

    // If the input is a single character
    return n < 2 ? " -1 " : new String(S);
}

// Driver code
public static void Main(String[] args)
{
    String str = "a";
    Console.WriteLine(findStr(str.ToCharArray()));

    String str1 = "abccba";
    Console.WriteLine(findStr(str1.ToCharArray()));
}
}

// This code is contributed by 29AjayKumar

Javascript

<script>

// Javascript program to make the string
// lexicographically smallest non
// palindromic string by replacing
// exactly one character

// Function to find the required string
function findStr(S)
{
    // length of the string
    var n = S.length;

    // Iterate till half of the string
    for (var i = 0; i < n / 2; ++i) {

        // replacing a non 'a' char with 'a'
        if (S[i] != 'a') {
            S[i] = 'a';

            return S.join("");;
        }
    }

    // Check if there is no 'a' in string
    // we replace last char of string by 'b'
    S[n - 1] = 'b';

    // If the input is a single character
    return n < 2 ? " -1 " : S.join("");;
}

// Driver code

var str = "a";
document.write( findStr(Array.from(str)) + "<br>");
var str1 = "abccba";
document.write( findStr(Array.from(str1)));

</script>

Output:

-1 
aaccba

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