How should I practice Minimum Length After Spacing Equal Characters?

Start by reading the full statement, solve the visible examples, then compare the pattern against related Amazon onsite interview problems in FastPrep.

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Minimum Length After Spacing Equal Characters

Amazon● MediumINTERNONSITE INTERVIEW

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Problem statement

Given a non-empty string of lowercase English letters and a nonnegative integer k, rearrange all characters and insert any number of placeholder positions so that every two equal characters have at least k positions between them.

Return the minimum possible total sequence length, including placeholders. The output asks only for the length, not one arrangement.

Function

minimumRearrangedLength(characters: String, k: int) → long

Examples

Example 1

characters = "abaaab"k = 3return = 13

Four copies of a require three groups of at least three separating positions.

Example 2

characters = "abaacd"k = 4return = 11

Three copies of a force a span of 11 positions.

Constraints

1 <= characters.length <= 200000
characters contains only lowercase English letters.
0 <= k <= 10^9
The answer fits in a signed 64-bit integer.

Source note: Interview prompt excerpt preserved as source evidence.