How should I practice Minimum Replacements for Unequal Adjacent Characters?

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

Is Minimum Replacements for Unequal Adjacent Characters associated with IBM?

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Problem · String

● Easy

IBMFULLTIMEOA

Given a lowercase string s, return the minimum number of replacement operations needed so that every pair of adjacent characters is different.

In one operation, choose one index and replace its character with any lowercase English letter. Insertions and deletions are not allowed.

minimumReplacements(s: String) → int

s = "aab"return = 1

Replace either of the first two a characters with a letter different from its neighbors.

s = "aaaa"return = 2

Two replacements can produce abab, and one replacement cannot break all three equal adjacencies.

s = "abac"return = 0

Every adjacent pair is already different.