Medium
Shortest Way to Form String — Python
Full explanation · Time O(m + n) · Space O(m)
# Time: O(m + n), m is the length of source
# , n is the length of target
# Space: O(m)
# greedy solution
class Solution(object):
def shortestWay(self, source, target):
"""
:type source: str
:type target: str
:rtype: int
"""
lookup = [[None for _ in xrange(26)] for _ in xrange(len(source)+1)]
find_char_next_pos = [None]*26
for i in reversed(xrange(len(source))):
find_char_next_pos[ord(source[i])-ord('a')] = i+1
lookup[i] = list(find_char_next_pos)
result, start = 1, 0
for c in target:
start = lookup[start][ord(c)-ord('a')]
if start != None:
continue
result += 1
start = lookup[0][ord(c)-ord('a')]
if start == None:
return -1
return result