How should I practice One-Dimensional Candy Crush?

Start by reading the full statement, solve the visible examples, then compare the pattern against related Bloomberg LP phone screen and onsite interview problems in FastPrep.

Is One-Dimensional Candy Crush associated with Bloomberg LP?

FastPrep tags this as a Bloomberg LP phone screen and onsite interview coding practice problem when the problem catalog has that company and stage context.

One-Dimensional Candy Crush

Bloomberg LP● MediumNEW GRADPHONE SCREENONSITE INTERVIEW

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Problem statement

Given a string s and an integer threshold k, repeatedly remove any maximal contiguous run of at least k equal characters.

Process runs from left to right. After a removal, the characters on its two sides become adjacent and may form a new qualifying run. Continue until no qualifying run remains, then return the remaining string.

Function

crushCandy(s: String, k: int) → String

Examples

Example 1

s = "aaabbbc"k = 3return = "c"

Remove aaa, then remove the newly exposed run bbb.

Example 2

s = "aabbbacd"k = 3return = "cd"

Removing bbb joins two and one a into aaa, which is removed next.

Example 3

s = "aabbccddeeedcba"k = 3return = ""

Each removal exposes the next three-character run until the string is empty.

Constraints

0 <= s.length <= 10^5.
2 <= k <= 10^5.
s contains lowercase English letters.