How should I practice Get Smallest String?

Start by reading the full statement, solve the visible examples, then compare the pattern against related IBM online assessment problems in FastPrep.

Is Get Smallest String associated with IBM?

FastPrep tags this as a IBM coding interview or online assessment practice problem when the problem catalog has that company context.

Problem · String

Get Smallest String

Learn this problem

● EasyIBMFULLTIMEOA

See IBM hiring insights

Problem statement

Given a string s that consists of lowercase English letters, select exactly one non-empty substring of s and replace each character of it with the previous character of the English alphabet. For example 'b' is converted to 'a', 'c' is converted to 'b'; ..., and 'a' is converted to 'z'.

Find the lexicographically smallest string that can be obtained after performing the above operation exactly once.

Function

getSmallestString(s: String) → String

Complete the function getSmallestString in the editor below.

getSmallestString has the following parameter:

s: string - a string

Returns

string: the lexicographically smallest string possible

Examples

Example 1

s = "hackerrank"return = "gackerrank"

Select and change only the first character. Return "gackerrank", the lexicographically smallest string possible.

Example 2

s = "bbcad"return = "aabad"

Change bbc to aab.

Constraints

1 ≤ length of s, |s| ≤ 10⁵