Palindrome Permutation

Difficulty Level Easy
Frequently asked in Facebook Microsoft
Hash Hashing StringViews 2015

Problem Statement

The problem “Palindrome Permutation” states that you are given a string. Check if it can be rearranged to form a palindromic string.

Example

superdupers
yes

Explanation

The given input string can be rearranged to superdrepus. It is a palindromic string. So our answer to this example is yes.

Approach

If all the characters occur even number of times and at most one character occurs the odd number of times then the string can be converted into a palindromic string.

To implement this approach we maintain a count array of size 128 and initialize with zero. Iterate through the string and increase the count of each character encountered in an array. Now iterate through the array and if at most one character occurs the odd number of times then return true else return false.

Palindrome Permutation

Code

C++ code for Palindrome Permutation

// C++ implementation to check if 
// characters of a given string can 
// be rearranged to form a palindrome 
#include<bits/stdc++.h> 
using namespace std; 
#define NO_OF_CHARS 256 

/* function to check whether characters of a string can form 
a palindrome */
bool canFormPalindrome(string str) 
{ 
  // Create a count array and initialize all 
  // values as 0 
  int count[NO_OF_CHARS] = {0}; 

  // For each character in input strings, 
  // increment count in the corresponding 
  // count array 
  for (int i = 0; str[i]; i++) 
    count[str[i]]++; 

  // Count odd occurring characters 
  int odd = 0; 
  for (int i = 0; i < NO_OF_CHARS; i++) 
  { 
    if (count[i] & 1) 
      odd++; 

    if (odd > 1) 
      return false; 
  } 

  // Return true if odd count is 0 or 1, 
  return true; 
} 

/* Driver program*/
int main() 
{ 
canFormPalindrome("superdupers")? cout << "Yes\n": 
                  cout << "No\n"; 
return 0; 
}
Yes

Java code for Palindrome Permutation

// Java implementation to check if 
// characters of a given string can 
// be rearranged to form a palindrome 
import java.io.*; 
import java.util.*; 
import java.math.*; 

class check { 

static int NO_OF_CHARS = 256; 

  /* function to check whether characters 
  of a string can form a palindrome */
  static boolean canFormPalindrome(String str) { 
  
  // Create a count array and initialize all 
  // values as 0 
  int count[] = new int[NO_OF_CHARS]; 
  Arrays.fill(count, 0); 

  // For each character in input strings, 
  // increment count in the corresponding 
  // count array 
  for (int i = 0; i < str.length(); i++) 
  count[(int)(str.charAt(i))]++; 

  // Count odd occurring characters 
  int odd = 0; 
  for (int i = 0; i < NO_OF_CHARS; i++) 
  { 
  if ((count[i] & 1) == 1) 
    odd++; 

  if (odd > 1) 
    return false; 
  } 

  // Return true if odd count is 0 or 1, 
  return true; 
} 

// Driver program 
public static void main(String args[]) 
{ 
  if (canFormPalindrome("superdupers")) 
  System.out.println("Yes"); 
  else
  System.out.println("No"); 

} 
}
Yes

Complexity Analysis

Time complexity

O(n) because we are traversing the array only once to check if the given string can be converted to a palindromic string. So the time complexity becomes O(n).

Space complexity

The space complexity for the program to check if the given string can be converted to a palindromic string is O(1) because we are using an array of size 128 to store the frequency of each character.

Efficient Approach

In this approach, we will maintain a list. Then we will iterate through the string and if the character is already present in the list we remove it else we insert that character into the list. After iteration, if the number of elements in the list is greater than one. So, it can’t be converted into a palindromic string.

Code

Optimized C++ code for Palindrome Permutation

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

/* 
* function to check whether characters of 
a string can form a palindrome 
*/
bool canFormPalindrome(string str) 
{ 

  // Create a list 
  vector<char> list; 

  // For each character in input strings, 
  // remove character if list contains 
  // else add character to list 
  for (int i = 0; i < str.length(); i++) 
  { 
    auto pos = find(list.begin(), list.end(), str[i]); 
    if (pos != list.end()) 
    { 
      auto posi = find(list.begin(), list.end(),str[i]); 
      list.erase(posi); 
    } 
    else
      list.push_back(str[i]); 
  } 

  // if character length is even list is expected to be empty 
  // or if character length is odd list size is expected to be 1 
  if (str.length() % 2 == 0 && list.empty() // if string length is even 
    || (str.length() % 2 == 1 && list.size() == 1)) // if string length is odd 
    return true; 
  else
    return false; 

} 

// Driver program 
int main() 
{ 
  if (canFormPalindrome("superdupers")) 
    cout << ("Yes") << endl; 
  else
    cout << ("No") << endl; 
}
Yes

Optimized Java code for Palindrome Permutation

import java.util.ArrayList; 
import java.util.List; 

class check{ 

  /* 
  * function to check whether characters of a string can form a palindrome 
  */
  static boolean canFormPalindrome(String str) { 

    // Create a list 
    List<Character> list = new ArrayList<Character>(); 

    // For each character in input strings, 
    // remove character if list contains 
    // else add character to list 
    for (int i = 0; i < str.length(); i++) { 
      if (list.contains(str.charAt(i))) 
        list.remove((Character) str.charAt(i)); 
      else
        list.add(str.charAt(i)); 
    } 

    // if character length is even list is expected to be empty 
    // or if character length is odd list size is expected to be 1 
    if (str.length() % 2 == 0 && list.isEmpty() // if string length is even 
        || (str.length() % 2 == 1 && list.size() == 1)) // if string length is odd 
      return true; 
    else
      return false; 

  } 

  // Driver program 
  public static void main(String args[]) { 
    if (canFormPalindrome("superdupers")) 
      System.out.println("Yes"); 
    else
      System.out.println("No"); 

  } 
}
Yes

Complexity Analysis

Time complexity

O(n) because we are traversing the array only once to check if the given string can be converted to a palindromic string. So the time complexity becomes O(n).

Space complexity

The space complexity for the program to check if the given string can be converted to a palindromic string is O(1).

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