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If the string is "hello world",
I need to flip every pair of characters and return "ehll oowlrd".
The way I do it returns "olleh dlrow".
var flipPairs = function (string) {
return string.split("").reverse().join("");
}
console.log(flipPairs("hello world"));
// -> ehll oowlrd
I'd use a regular expression - match two consecutive characters, and replace with them in reversed order:
const flipPairs = str => str.replace(/(.)(.)/g, '$2$1');
console.log(flipPairs("hello world"));
You could calculate the index and take this character of the actual one if the string has an odd length.
function flipPairs(string) {
return [...string].map((c, i, a) => a[i + ((i + 1) % 2 || -1)] || c).join('');
}
console.log(flipPairs('hello world'));
What about this:
function flip(s)
{
let r = "";
for (let i = 0; i < s.length; i+=2)
r += (i+1 < s.length ? s[i+1] : "")+s[i];
return r;
}
console.log(flip("hello world"));
This question already has answers here:
Why does javascript's "in" operator return true when testing if 0 exists in an array that doesn't contain 0?
(6 answers)
Closed 3 years ago.
I'm literally stuck at solving this simple question. Anyway I found out another way to solve this but I couldn't figure out the issue with my code.
function charCout(str)
{
str = str.toLowerCase();
var f = {};
for(let i =0;i<str.length;i++)
{
if(str[i] === " ")
{
continue;
}
else{
if(str[i] in Object.keys(f))
{
f[str[i]] += 1;
}
else
{
f[str[i]] = 1;
}
}
}
return(f);
}
input: charCout("my name is Khan23")
expected output: {2: 1,3: 1,a: 2,e: 1,h: 1,i: 1,k: 1,m: 2,n: 2,s: 1,y: 1}
what i got: {2: NaN,3: NaN,a: 1,e: 1,h: 1,i: 1,k: 1,m: 1,n: 1,s: 1,y: 1}
Simply see if the property exists by type coercion like: if(f[str[i]])
function charCount(str)
{
str = str.toLowerCase();
var f = {};
for(let i =0;i<str.length;i++)
{
if(str[i] === " ")
{
continue;
}
else{
if(f[str[i]])
{
f[str[i]] += 1;
}
else
{
f[str[i]] = 1;
}
}
}
return(f);
}
console.log(charCount('the value is 0000'))
You are using the wrong to way to check if key is in object or not.
You can contract your if-else to single line using || operator.
f[str[i]] = f[str[i]] + 1 || 1
It checks whether f[str[i]] already exists or not. If str[i] is not key of f then f[str[i]] will return undefined and undefined + 1 will be NaN.
NaN is a falsy value so NaN || 1 will evaluate to 1.
If the f[str[i]] exists then it will return any number greater than 0 so it will be set to f[str[i]] + 1(incremented by one)
function charCount(str)
{
str = str.toLowerCase();
var f = {};
for(let i =0;i<str.length;i++)
{
if(str[i] !== " ")
{
f[str[i]] = f[str[i]] + 1 || 1
}
}
return(f);
}
console.log(charCount("my name is Khan23"))
Explanation:
You can also use reduce().
const charCount = str => str
.split(' ')
.join('')
.split('')
.reduce((ac,a) =>
(ac[a] = ac[a] + 1 || 1, ac),
{})
console.log(charCount("my name is Khan23"))
using Object.keys(f).includes(str[i]) instead of str[i] in Object.keys(f) is the solution
in operator primarily would work to check if Object provides a particular attribute
Mozilla doc on in and Array.prototype.includes shall help.
following variation of your function would work
function charCout(str)
{
str = str.toLowerCase();
var f = {};
for(let i =0;i<str.length;i++)
{
if(str[i] === " ")
{
continue;
}
else{
if(Object.keys(f).includes(str[i]))
{
f[str[i]] += 1;
}
else
{
f[str[i]] = 1;
}
}
}
return(f);
}
You can take advantage of String.protoype.split and Array.prototype.reduce to solve this. Check the comments in the code for details:
const charCount = s => {
//Create an array of characters found in the string (filtering out spaces)
const chars = s.split('').filter(char => char.trim());
//Use reduce to create an occurrence map - increment by 1 each time a character is encountered
return chars.reduce((accum, char) => {
accum[char] = accum[char] ? accum[char] + 1 : 1;
return accum;
}, {});
};
console.log(charCount("my name is Khan23"))
Thank you all for your helpful suggestions. i finally figured out whats wrong with my code.
inputs and outputs of my defected code is as follows:
input: charCout("my name is Khan23")
expected output: {2: 1,3: 1,a: 2,e: 1,h: 1,i: 1,k: 1,m: 2,n: 2,s: 1,y: 1}
what i got: {2: NaN,3: NaN,a: 1,e: 1,h: 1,i: 1,k: 1,m: 1,n: 1,s: 1,y: 1};
I've used "in" operator to find out whether a specific value of string is present the Object.keys(f) array. That's exactly where I went wrong.
after referring to https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Operators/in i got to know "in" can't be used to filter array using value at index.
You can use str.split("") to get the list of chars and then do something like
const splitted = str.split("");
const result = {};
splitted.map(letter => result[letter] ? result[letter]++ : result[letter] = 1)
it is just an idea
Simply trying to find how many times a given character appears in a string but I can't solve it any other way then this simple for-loop. Is there a method that would solve this quicker or more eloquently other than using Regex?
function countCharacter(str, char) {
var count = 0;
for(var i = 0; i < str.length; i++){
if(str.charAt(i) === char)
count++;
}
return count;
}
There are many possible ways are available in the market.
I am adding a few of them.
Method 1:
str = "The man is as good as his word"
str.split('a')
output: (4) ["The m", "n is ", "s good ", "s his word"]
str.split('a').length - 1
output: 3
Method 2:
str = "The man is as good as his word"
str.split('').map( function(char,i)
{ if(char === 'a')
return i;
}
).filter(Boolean)
Output: (3) [5, 11, 19]
str.split('').map( function(char,i)
{ if(char === 'a')
return i;
}
).filter(Boolean).length
ouput: 3
Edit: As per comment we can also make use of filter().
str.split('').filter(function(char, i){
if(char == 'a'){
return i;
}
})
output: (3) ["a", "a", "a"]
str.split('').filter(function(char, i){
if(char == 'a'){
return i;
}
}).length
output: 3
----edited by adding more cases from answers----
there are several ways, you can use split/for/regex/reduce/indexOf like this:
function countCharacter_reduce(str, ch) {
return Array.prototype.reduce.call(str, (prev, cur) => cur === ch && ++prev && prev, 0);
}
function countCharacter_split(str, ch) {
return str.split(ch).length - 1;
}
function countCharacter_for(str, ch) {
for (var count = 0, ii = 0; ii < str.length; ii++) {
if (str[ii] === ch)
count++;
}
return count;
}
function countCharacter_regex(str, ch) {
return str.length - str.replace(new RegExp(ch, 'g'), '').length;
}
function countCharacter_indexOf(str, char) {
var start = 0;
var count = 0;
while ((start = str.indexOf(char, start) + 1) !== 0) {
count++;
}
return count;
}
performance of them by running 1,000,000 times on counting '/' in a string.
-- case1: running 1000000 times on ( 'this/is/a/path/with/extension', '/' )
countCharacter_reduce: 2389.880ms
countCharacter_regex: 496.251ms
countCharacter_split: 114.709ms
countCharacter_for: 152.012ms
countCharacter_indexOf: 90.330ms
-- case2: running 1000000 times on ( '////////////', '/' )
countCharacter_reduce: 1138.051ms
countCharacter_regex: 619.886ms
countCharacter_split: 121.945ms
countCharacter_for: 74.542ms
countCharacter_indexOf: 204.242ms
Conclusion ('>' means 'has better performance'):
for|split|indexOf > regex > reduce.
furthermore,
if the string contains more searching characters (like case2),
for>split>indexOf,
otherwise (like case1)
indexOf > split > for.
BTW: you can change the for indexOf method to fit multi-characters search (example is single character)
using reduce:
function countCharacter(str, char) {
return str.split('').reduce((a, x) => x === char ? ++a : a, 0);
}
I guess this involves regex which you wanted to avoid but it's pretty quick:
function countCharacter(str, char) {
return str.length - str.replace(new RegExp(char,"g"),"").length;
}
You can also try the str.split(char).length-1 approach suggested by Jaromanda.
Or, go all out with some fun recursion (pass 0 to startingFrom):
function countCharacter(str, char, startingFrom) {
var idx = str.indexOf(char, startingFrom);
return idx == -1 ? 0 : 1 + countCharacter(str, char, idx + 1);
}
You can get rid of the annoying extra argument at the cost of some efficiency:
function countCharacter(str, char) {
var idx = str.indexOf(char);
return idx == -1 ? 0 : 1 + countCharacter(str.substr(idx+1), char);
}
And here's a version optimized for speed (this is about 3 times faster on my browser than your original and much faster than the regex versions, according to jsperf):
function countCharacter(str, char) {
var start = 0;
var count = 0;
while((start = str.indexOf(char, start)+1) !== 0) {
count++;
}
return count;
}
Note that the indexOf approaches will generally be substantially faster than manually iterating through the string. See jsperf
Here you go. One line code
"hello".match(new RegExp('l','g')).length
replace 'l' with any char here, new RegExp('l','g').
that is
str.match(new RegExp(char,'g')).length
Have you thought of using the split() method? How about this -
function myFunction(str, char) {
return string.split(char).length - 1
}
Let me know what you think of this solution.
I have the following:
function checkPalindrom(palindrom)
{
for( var i = palindrom.length; i > 0; i-- )
{
if( palindrom[i] = palindrom.charAt(palindrom.length)-1 )
{
document.write('the word is palindrome.');
}else{
document.write('the word is not palindrome!');
}
}
}
checkPalindrom('wordthatwillbechecked');
What is wrong with my code? I want to check if the word is a palindrome.
Maybe I will suggest alternative solution:
function checkPalindrom (str) {
return str == str.split('').reverse().join('');
}
UPD. Keep in mind however that this is pretty much "cheating" approach, a demonstration of smart usage of language features, but not the most practical algorithm (time O(n), space O(n)). For real life application or coding interview you should definitely use loop solution. The one posted by Jason Sebring in this thread is both simple and efficient (time O(n), space O(1)).
25x faster than the standard answer
function isPalindrome(s,i) {
return (i=i||0)<0||i>=s.length>>1||s[i]==s[s.length-1-i]&&isPalindrome(s,++i);
}
use like:
isPalindrome('racecar');
as it defines "i" itself
Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/namcx0yf/9/
This is ~25 times faster than the standard answer below.
function checkPalindrome(str) {
return str == str.split('').reverse().join('');
}
Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/t0zfjfab/2/
View console for performance results.
Although the solution is difficult to read and maintain, I would recommend understanding it to demonstrate non-branching with recursion and bit shifting to impress your next interviewer.
explained
The || and && are used for control flow like "if" "else". If something left of || is true, it just exits with true. If something is false left of || it must continue. If something left of && is false, it exits as false, if something left of a && is true, it must continue. This is considered "non-branching" as it does not need if-else interupts, rather its just evaluated.
1. Used an initializer not requiring "i" to be defined as an argument. Assigns "i" to itself if defined, otherwise initialize to 0. Always is false so next OR condition is always evaluated.
(i = i || 0) < 0
2. Checks if "i" went half way but skips checking middle odd char. Bit shifted here is like division by 2 but to lowest even neighbor division by 2 result. If true then assumes palindrome since its already done. If false evaluates next OR condition.
i >= s.length >> 1
3. Compares from beginning char and end char according to "i" eventually to meet as neighbors or neighbor to middle char. If false exits and assumes NOT palindrome. If true continues on to next AND condition.
s[i] == s[s.length-1-i]
4. Calls itself again for recursion passing the original string as "s". Since "i" is defined for sure at this point, it is pre-incremented to continue checking the string's position. Returns boolean value indicating if palindrome.
isPalindrome(s,++i)
BUT...
A simple for loop is still about twice as fast as my fancy answer (aka KISS principle)
function fastestIsPalindrome(str) {
var len = Math.floor(str.length / 2);
for (var i = 0; i < len; i++)
if (str[i] !== str[str.length - i - 1])
return false;
return true;
}
http://jsfiddle.net/6L953awz/1/
The logic here is not quite correct, you need to check every letter to determine if the word is a palindrome. Currently, you print multiple times. What about doing something like:
function checkPalindrome(word) {
var l = word.length;
for (var i = 0; i < l / 2; i++) {
if (word.charAt(i) !== word.charAt(l - 1 - i)) {
return false;
}
}
return true;
}
if (checkPalindrome("1122332211")) {
document.write("The word is a palindrome");
} else {
document.write("The word is NOT a palindrome");
}
Which should print that it IS indeed a palindrome.
First problem
= is assign
== is compare
Second problem, Your logic here is wrong
palindrom.charAt(palindrom.length)-1
You are subtracting one from the charAt and not the length.
Third problem, it still will be wrong since you are not reducing the length by i.
It works to me
function palindrome(str) {
/* remove special characters, spaces and make lowercase*/
var removeChar = str.replace(/[^A-Z0-9]/ig, "").toLowerCase();
/* reverse removeChar for comparison*/
var checkPalindrome = removeChar.split('').reverse().join('');
/* Check to see if str is a Palindrome*/
return (removeChar === checkPalindrome);
}
As a much clearer recursive function: http://jsfiddle.net/dmz2x117/
function isPalindrome(letters) {
var characters = letters.split(''),
firstLetter = characters.shift(),
lastLetter = characters.pop();
if (firstLetter !== lastLetter) {
return false;
}
if (characters.length < 2) {
return true;
}
return isPalindrome(characters.join(''));
}
SHORTEST CODE (31 chars)(ES6):
p=s=>s==[...s].reverse().join``
p('racecar'); //true
Keep in mind short code isn't necessarily the best. Readability and efficiency can matter more.
At least three things:
You are trying to test for equality with =, which is used for setting. You need to test with == or ===. (Probably the latter, if you don't have a reason for the former.)
You are reporting results after checking each character. But you don't know the results until you've checked enough characters.
You double-check each character-pair, as you really only need to check if, say first === last and not also if last === first.
function checkPalindrom(palindrom)
{
var flag = true;
var j = 0;
for( var i = palindrom.length-1; i > palindrom.length / 2; i-- )
{
if( palindrom[i] != palindrom[j] )
{
flag = false;
break; // why this? It'll exit the loop at once when there is a mismatch.
}
j++;
}
if( flag ) {
document.write('the word is palindrome.');
}
else {
document.write('the word is not palindrome.');
}
}
checkPalindrom('wordthatwillbechecked');
Why am I printing the result outside the loop? Otherwise, for each match in the word, it'll print "is or is not pallindrome" rather than checking the whole word.
EDIT: Updated with changes and a fix suggested by Basemm.
I've added some more to the above functions, to check strings like, "Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog".
function checkPalindrom(str) {
var str = str.replace(/[^a-zA-Z0-9]+/gi, '').toLowerCase();
return str == str.split('').reverse().join('');
}
Thanks
The most important thing to do when solving a Technical Test is Don't use shortcut methods -- they want to see how you think algorithmically! Not your use of methods.
Here is one that I came up with (45 minutes after I blew the test). There are a couple optimizations to make though. When writing any algorithm, its best to assume false and alter the logic if its looking to be true.
isPalindrome():
Basically, to make this run in O(N) (linear) complexity you want to have 2 iterators whose vectors point towards each other. Meaning, one iterator that starts at the beginning and one that starts at the end, each traveling inward. You could have the iterators traverse the whole array and use a condition to break/return once they meet in the middle, but it may save some work to only give each iterator a half-length by default.
for loops seem to force the use of more checks, so I used while loops - which I'm less comfortable with.
Here's the code:
/**
* TODO: If func counts out, let it return 0
* * Assume !isPalindrome (invert logic)
*/
function isPalindrome(S){
var s = S
, len = s.length
, mid = len/2;
, i = 0, j = len-1;
while(i<mid){
var l = s.charAt(i);
while(j>=mid){
var r = s.charAt(j);
if(l === r){
console.log('#while *', i, l, '...', j, r);
--j;
break;
}
console.log('#while !', i, l, '...', j, r);
return 0;
}
++i;
}
return 1;
}
var nooe = solution('neveroddoreven'); // even char length
var kayak = solution('kayak'); // odd char length
var kayaks = solution('kayaks');
console.log('#isPalindrome', nooe, kayak, kayaks);
Notice that if the loops count out, it returns true. All the logic should be inverted so that it by default returns false. I also used one short cut method String.prototype.charAt(n), but I felt OK with this as every language natively supports this method.
function palindromCheck(str) {
var palinArr, i,
palindrom = [],
palinArr = str.split(/[\s!.?,;:'"-()]/ig);
for (i = 0; i < palinArr.length; i++) {
if (palinArr[i].toLowerCase() === palinArr[i].split('').reverse().join('').toLowerCase() &&
palinArr[i] !== '') {
palindrom.push(palinArr[i]);
}
}
return palindrom.join(', ');
}
console.log(palindromCheck('There is a man, his name! was Bob.')); //a, Bob
Finds and upper to lower case. Split string into array, I don't know why a few white spaces remain, but I wanted to catch and single letters.
= in palindrom[i] = palindrom.charAt(palindrom.length)-1 should be == or ===
palindrom.charAt(palindrom.length)-1 should be palindrom.charAt(palindrom.length - i)
Sharing my fast variant which also support spaces
function isPalindrom(str) {
var ia = 0;
var ib = str.length - 1;
do {
if (str[ia] === str[ib]) continue;
// if spaces skip & retry
if (str[ia] === ' ' && ib++) continue;
if (str[ib] === ' ' && ia--) continue;
return false;
} while (++ia < --ib);
return true;
}
var palindrom="never odd or even";
var res = isPalindrom(palindrom);
document.getElementById('check').innerHTML ='"'+ palindrom + '"'+" checked to be :" +res;
<span id="check" />
Some above short anwsers is good, but it's not easy for understand, I suggest one more way:
function checkPalindrome(inputString) {
if(inputString.length == 1){
return true;
}else{
var i = 0;
var j = inputString.length -1;
while(i < j){
if(inputString[i] != inputString[j]){
return false;
}
i++;
j--;
}
}
return true;
}
I compare each character, i start form left, j start from right, until their index is not valid (i<j).
It's also working in any languages
One more solution with ES6
isPalin = str => [...str].every((c, i) => c === str[str.length-1-i]);
You can try the following
function checkPalindrom (str) {
str = str.toLowerCase();
return str == str.split('').reverse().join('');
}
if(checkPalindrom('Racecar')) {
console.log('Palindrome');
} else {
console.log('Not Palindrome');
}
function checkPalindrom(palindrom)
{
palindrom= palindrom.toLowerCase();
var flag = true;
var j;
j = (palindrom.length) -1 ;
//console.log(j);
var cnt = j / 2;
//console.log(cnt);
for( i = 0; i < cnt+1 ; i++,j-- )
{
console.log("J is => "+j);
console.log(palindrom[i] + "<==>" + palindrom[j]);
if( palindrom[i] != palindrom[j] )
{
flag = false;
break;
}
}
if( flag ) {
console.log('the word is palindrome.');
}
else {
console.log('the word is not palindrome.');
}
}
checkPalindrom('Avid diva');
I'm wondering why nobody suggested this:
ES6:
// "aba" -> true
// "acb" -> false
// "aa" -> true
// "abba" -> true
// "s" -> true
isPalindrom = (str = "") => {
if (str[0] === str[str.length - 1]) {
return str.length <= 1 ? true : isPalindrom(str.slice(1, -1))
}
return false;
}
alert(["aba", "acb", "aa", "abba", "s"].map((e, i) => isPalindrom(e)).join())
ES5:
// "aba" -> true
// "acb" -> false
// "aa" -> true
// "abba" -> true
// "s" -> true
function isPalindrom(str) => {
var str = typeof str !== "string" ? "" : str;
if (str[0] === str[str.length - 1]) {
return str.length <= 1 ? true : isPalindrom(str.slice(1, -1))
}
return false;
}
alert(["aba", "acb", "aa", "abba", "s"].map(function (e, i) {
return isPalindrom(e);
}).join());
Recursive Method:
var low;
var high;
var A = "abcdcba";
function palindrome(A , low, high){
A = A.split('');
if((low > high) || (low == high)){
return true;
}
if(A[low] === A[high]){
A = A.join('');
low = low + 1;
high = high - 1;
return palindrome(A , low, high);
}
else{
return "not a palindrome";
}
}
palindrome(A, 0, A.length-1);
I thought I'd share my own solution:
function palindrome(string){
var reverseString = '';
for(var k in string){
reverseString += string[(string.length - k) - 1];
}
if(string === reverseString){
console.log('Hey there palindrome');
}else{
console.log('You are not a palindrome');
}
}
palindrome('ana');
Hope will help someone.
I found this on an interview site:
Write an efficient function that checks whether any permutation of an
input string is a palindrome. You can ignore punctuation, we only care
about the characters.
Playing around with it I came up with this ugly piece of code :)
function checkIfPalindrome(text) {
var found = {};
var foundOne = 0;
text = text.replace(/[^a-z0-9]/gi, '').toLowerCase();
for (var i = 0; i < text.length; i++) {
if (found[text[i]]) {
found[text[i]]++;
} else {
found[text[i]] = 1;
}
}
for (var x in found) {
if (found[x] === 1) {
foundOne++;
if (foundOne > 1) {
return false;
}
}
}
for (var x in found) {
if (found[x] > 2 && found[x] % 2 && foundOne) {
return false;
}
}
return true;
}
Just leaving it here for posterity.
How about this, using a simple flag
function checkPalindrom(str){
var flag = true;
for( var i = 0; i <= str.length-1; i++){
if( str[i] !== str[str.length - i-1]){
flag = false;
}
}
if(flag == false){
console.log('the word is not a palindrome!');
}
else{
console.log('the word is a palindrome!');
}
}
checkPalindrom('abcdcba');
(JavaScript) Using regexp, this checks for alphanumeric palindrome and disregards space and punctuation.
function palindrome(str) {
str = str.match(/[A-Za-z0-9]/gi).join("").toLowerCase();
// (/[A-Za-z0-9]/gi) above makes str alphanumeric
for(var i = 0; i < Math.floor(str.length/2); i++) { //only need to run for half the string length
if(str.charAt(i) !== str.charAt(str.length-i-1)) { // uses !== to compare characters one-by-one from the beginning and end
return "Try again.";
}
}
return "Palindrome!";
}
palindrome("A man, a plan, a canal. Panama.");
//palindrome("4_2 (: /-\ :) 2-4"); // This solution would also work on something like this.
`
function checkPalindrome (str) {
var str = str.toLowerCase();
var original = str.split(' ').join('');
var reversed = original.split(' ').reverse().join('');
return (original === reversed);
}
`
This avoids regex while also dealing with strings that have spaces and uppercase...
function isPalindrome(str) {
str = str.split("");
var str2 = str.filter(function(x){
if(x !== ' ' && x !== ',') {
return x;
}
});
return console.log(str2.join('').toLowerCase()) == console.log(str2.reverse().join('').toLowerCase());
};
isPalindrome("A car, a man, a maraca"); //true
function myPolidrome(polidrome){
var string=polidrome.split('').join(',');
for(var i=0;i<string.length;i++){
if(string.length==1){
console.log("is polidrome");
}else if(string[i]!=string.charAt(string.length-1)){
console.log("is not polidrome");
break;
}else{
return myPolidrome(polidrome.substring(1,polidrome.length-1));
}
}
}
myPolidrome("asasdsdsa");
Thought I will share my solution using Array.prototype.filter(). filter()
filters the array based on boolean values the function returns.
var inputArray=["","a","ab","aba","abab","ababa"]
var outputArray=inputArray.filter(function isPalindrome(x){
if (x.length<2) return true;
var y=x.split("").reverse().join("");
return x==y;
})
console.log(outputArray);
This worked for me.
var number = 8008
number = number + "";
numberreverse = number.split("").reverse().join('');
console.log ("The number if reversed is: " +numberreverse);
if (number == numberreverse)
console.log("Yes, this is a palindrome");
else
console.log("Nope! It isnt a palindrome");
Here is a solution that works even if the string contains non-alphanumeric characters.
function isPalindrome(str) {
str = str.toLowerCase().replace(/\W+|_/g, '');
return str == str.split('').reverse().join('');
}
I have the following:
function checkPalindrom(palindrom)
{
for( var i = palindrom.length; i > 0; i-- )
{
if( palindrom[i] = palindrom.charAt(palindrom.length)-1 )
{
document.write('the word is palindrome.');
}else{
document.write('the word is not palindrome!');
}
}
}
checkPalindrom('wordthatwillbechecked');
What is wrong with my code? I want to check if the word is a palindrome.
Maybe I will suggest alternative solution:
function checkPalindrom (str) {
return str == str.split('').reverse().join('');
}
UPD. Keep in mind however that this is pretty much "cheating" approach, a demonstration of smart usage of language features, but not the most practical algorithm (time O(n), space O(n)). For real life application or coding interview you should definitely use loop solution. The one posted by Jason Sebring in this thread is both simple and efficient (time O(n), space O(1)).
25x faster than the standard answer
function isPalindrome(s,i) {
return (i=i||0)<0||i>=s.length>>1||s[i]==s[s.length-1-i]&&isPalindrome(s,++i);
}
use like:
isPalindrome('racecar');
as it defines "i" itself
Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/namcx0yf/9/
This is ~25 times faster than the standard answer below.
function checkPalindrome(str) {
return str == str.split('').reverse().join('');
}
Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/t0zfjfab/2/
View console for performance results.
Although the solution is difficult to read and maintain, I would recommend understanding it to demonstrate non-branching with recursion and bit shifting to impress your next interviewer.
explained
The || and && are used for control flow like "if" "else". If something left of || is true, it just exits with true. If something is false left of || it must continue. If something left of && is false, it exits as false, if something left of a && is true, it must continue. This is considered "non-branching" as it does not need if-else interupts, rather its just evaluated.
1. Used an initializer not requiring "i" to be defined as an argument. Assigns "i" to itself if defined, otherwise initialize to 0. Always is false so next OR condition is always evaluated.
(i = i || 0) < 0
2. Checks if "i" went half way but skips checking middle odd char. Bit shifted here is like division by 2 but to lowest even neighbor division by 2 result. If true then assumes palindrome since its already done. If false evaluates next OR condition.
i >= s.length >> 1
3. Compares from beginning char and end char according to "i" eventually to meet as neighbors or neighbor to middle char. If false exits and assumes NOT palindrome. If true continues on to next AND condition.
s[i] == s[s.length-1-i]
4. Calls itself again for recursion passing the original string as "s". Since "i" is defined for sure at this point, it is pre-incremented to continue checking the string's position. Returns boolean value indicating if palindrome.
isPalindrome(s,++i)
BUT...
A simple for loop is still about twice as fast as my fancy answer (aka KISS principle)
function fastestIsPalindrome(str) {
var len = Math.floor(str.length / 2);
for (var i = 0; i < len; i++)
if (str[i] !== str[str.length - i - 1])
return false;
return true;
}
http://jsfiddle.net/6L953awz/1/
The logic here is not quite correct, you need to check every letter to determine if the word is a palindrome. Currently, you print multiple times. What about doing something like:
function checkPalindrome(word) {
var l = word.length;
for (var i = 0; i < l / 2; i++) {
if (word.charAt(i) !== word.charAt(l - 1 - i)) {
return false;
}
}
return true;
}
if (checkPalindrome("1122332211")) {
document.write("The word is a palindrome");
} else {
document.write("The word is NOT a palindrome");
}
Which should print that it IS indeed a palindrome.
First problem
= is assign
== is compare
Second problem, Your logic here is wrong
palindrom.charAt(palindrom.length)-1
You are subtracting one from the charAt and not the length.
Third problem, it still will be wrong since you are not reducing the length by i.
It works to me
function palindrome(str) {
/* remove special characters, spaces and make lowercase*/
var removeChar = str.replace(/[^A-Z0-9]/ig, "").toLowerCase();
/* reverse removeChar for comparison*/
var checkPalindrome = removeChar.split('').reverse().join('');
/* Check to see if str is a Palindrome*/
return (removeChar === checkPalindrome);
}
As a much clearer recursive function: http://jsfiddle.net/dmz2x117/
function isPalindrome(letters) {
var characters = letters.split(''),
firstLetter = characters.shift(),
lastLetter = characters.pop();
if (firstLetter !== lastLetter) {
return false;
}
if (characters.length < 2) {
return true;
}
return isPalindrome(characters.join(''));
}
SHORTEST CODE (31 chars)(ES6):
p=s=>s==[...s].reverse().join``
p('racecar'); //true
Keep in mind short code isn't necessarily the best. Readability and efficiency can matter more.
At least three things:
You are trying to test for equality with =, which is used for setting. You need to test with == or ===. (Probably the latter, if you don't have a reason for the former.)
You are reporting results after checking each character. But you don't know the results until you've checked enough characters.
You double-check each character-pair, as you really only need to check if, say first === last and not also if last === first.
function checkPalindrom(palindrom)
{
var flag = true;
var j = 0;
for( var i = palindrom.length-1; i > palindrom.length / 2; i-- )
{
if( palindrom[i] != palindrom[j] )
{
flag = false;
break; // why this? It'll exit the loop at once when there is a mismatch.
}
j++;
}
if( flag ) {
document.write('the word is palindrome.');
}
else {
document.write('the word is not palindrome.');
}
}
checkPalindrom('wordthatwillbechecked');
Why am I printing the result outside the loop? Otherwise, for each match in the word, it'll print "is or is not pallindrome" rather than checking the whole word.
EDIT: Updated with changes and a fix suggested by Basemm.
I've added some more to the above functions, to check strings like, "Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog".
function checkPalindrom(str) {
var str = str.replace(/[^a-zA-Z0-9]+/gi, '').toLowerCase();
return str == str.split('').reverse().join('');
}
Thanks
The most important thing to do when solving a Technical Test is Don't use shortcut methods -- they want to see how you think algorithmically! Not your use of methods.
Here is one that I came up with (45 minutes after I blew the test). There are a couple optimizations to make though. When writing any algorithm, its best to assume false and alter the logic if its looking to be true.
isPalindrome():
Basically, to make this run in O(N) (linear) complexity you want to have 2 iterators whose vectors point towards each other. Meaning, one iterator that starts at the beginning and one that starts at the end, each traveling inward. You could have the iterators traverse the whole array and use a condition to break/return once they meet in the middle, but it may save some work to only give each iterator a half-length by default.
for loops seem to force the use of more checks, so I used while loops - which I'm less comfortable with.
Here's the code:
/**
* TODO: If func counts out, let it return 0
* * Assume !isPalindrome (invert logic)
*/
function isPalindrome(S){
var s = S
, len = s.length
, mid = len/2;
, i = 0, j = len-1;
while(i<mid){
var l = s.charAt(i);
while(j>=mid){
var r = s.charAt(j);
if(l === r){
console.log('#while *', i, l, '...', j, r);
--j;
break;
}
console.log('#while !', i, l, '...', j, r);
return 0;
}
++i;
}
return 1;
}
var nooe = solution('neveroddoreven'); // even char length
var kayak = solution('kayak'); // odd char length
var kayaks = solution('kayaks');
console.log('#isPalindrome', nooe, kayak, kayaks);
Notice that if the loops count out, it returns true. All the logic should be inverted so that it by default returns false. I also used one short cut method String.prototype.charAt(n), but I felt OK with this as every language natively supports this method.
function palindromCheck(str) {
var palinArr, i,
palindrom = [],
palinArr = str.split(/[\s!.?,;:'"-()]/ig);
for (i = 0; i < palinArr.length; i++) {
if (palinArr[i].toLowerCase() === palinArr[i].split('').reverse().join('').toLowerCase() &&
palinArr[i] !== '') {
palindrom.push(palinArr[i]);
}
}
return palindrom.join(', ');
}
console.log(palindromCheck('There is a man, his name! was Bob.')); //a, Bob
Finds and upper to lower case. Split string into array, I don't know why a few white spaces remain, but I wanted to catch and single letters.
= in palindrom[i] = palindrom.charAt(palindrom.length)-1 should be == or ===
palindrom.charAt(palindrom.length)-1 should be palindrom.charAt(palindrom.length - i)
Sharing my fast variant which also support spaces
function isPalindrom(str) {
var ia = 0;
var ib = str.length - 1;
do {
if (str[ia] === str[ib]) continue;
// if spaces skip & retry
if (str[ia] === ' ' && ib++) continue;
if (str[ib] === ' ' && ia--) continue;
return false;
} while (++ia < --ib);
return true;
}
var palindrom="never odd or even";
var res = isPalindrom(palindrom);
document.getElementById('check').innerHTML ='"'+ palindrom + '"'+" checked to be :" +res;
<span id="check" />
Some above short anwsers is good, but it's not easy for understand, I suggest one more way:
function checkPalindrome(inputString) {
if(inputString.length == 1){
return true;
}else{
var i = 0;
var j = inputString.length -1;
while(i < j){
if(inputString[i] != inputString[j]){
return false;
}
i++;
j--;
}
}
return true;
}
I compare each character, i start form left, j start from right, until their index is not valid (i<j).
It's also working in any languages
One more solution with ES6
isPalin = str => [...str].every((c, i) => c === str[str.length-1-i]);
You can try the following
function checkPalindrom (str) {
str = str.toLowerCase();
return str == str.split('').reverse().join('');
}
if(checkPalindrom('Racecar')) {
console.log('Palindrome');
} else {
console.log('Not Palindrome');
}
function checkPalindrom(palindrom)
{
palindrom= palindrom.toLowerCase();
var flag = true;
var j;
j = (palindrom.length) -1 ;
//console.log(j);
var cnt = j / 2;
//console.log(cnt);
for( i = 0; i < cnt+1 ; i++,j-- )
{
console.log("J is => "+j);
console.log(palindrom[i] + "<==>" + palindrom[j]);
if( palindrom[i] != palindrom[j] )
{
flag = false;
break;
}
}
if( flag ) {
console.log('the word is palindrome.');
}
else {
console.log('the word is not palindrome.');
}
}
checkPalindrom('Avid diva');
I'm wondering why nobody suggested this:
ES6:
// "aba" -> true
// "acb" -> false
// "aa" -> true
// "abba" -> true
// "s" -> true
isPalindrom = (str = "") => {
if (str[0] === str[str.length - 1]) {
return str.length <= 1 ? true : isPalindrom(str.slice(1, -1))
}
return false;
}
alert(["aba", "acb", "aa", "abba", "s"].map((e, i) => isPalindrom(e)).join())
ES5:
// "aba" -> true
// "acb" -> false
// "aa" -> true
// "abba" -> true
// "s" -> true
function isPalindrom(str) => {
var str = typeof str !== "string" ? "" : str;
if (str[0] === str[str.length - 1]) {
return str.length <= 1 ? true : isPalindrom(str.slice(1, -1))
}
return false;
}
alert(["aba", "acb", "aa", "abba", "s"].map(function (e, i) {
return isPalindrom(e);
}).join());
Recursive Method:
var low;
var high;
var A = "abcdcba";
function palindrome(A , low, high){
A = A.split('');
if((low > high) || (low == high)){
return true;
}
if(A[low] === A[high]){
A = A.join('');
low = low + 1;
high = high - 1;
return palindrome(A , low, high);
}
else{
return "not a palindrome";
}
}
palindrome(A, 0, A.length-1);
I thought I'd share my own solution:
function palindrome(string){
var reverseString = '';
for(var k in string){
reverseString += string[(string.length - k) - 1];
}
if(string === reverseString){
console.log('Hey there palindrome');
}else{
console.log('You are not a palindrome');
}
}
palindrome('ana');
Hope will help someone.
I found this on an interview site:
Write an efficient function that checks whether any permutation of an
input string is a palindrome. You can ignore punctuation, we only care
about the characters.
Playing around with it I came up with this ugly piece of code :)
function checkIfPalindrome(text) {
var found = {};
var foundOne = 0;
text = text.replace(/[^a-z0-9]/gi, '').toLowerCase();
for (var i = 0; i < text.length; i++) {
if (found[text[i]]) {
found[text[i]]++;
} else {
found[text[i]] = 1;
}
}
for (var x in found) {
if (found[x] === 1) {
foundOne++;
if (foundOne > 1) {
return false;
}
}
}
for (var x in found) {
if (found[x] > 2 && found[x] % 2 && foundOne) {
return false;
}
}
return true;
}
Just leaving it here for posterity.
How about this, using a simple flag
function checkPalindrom(str){
var flag = true;
for( var i = 0; i <= str.length-1; i++){
if( str[i] !== str[str.length - i-1]){
flag = false;
}
}
if(flag == false){
console.log('the word is not a palindrome!');
}
else{
console.log('the word is a palindrome!');
}
}
checkPalindrom('abcdcba');
(JavaScript) Using regexp, this checks for alphanumeric palindrome and disregards space and punctuation.
function palindrome(str) {
str = str.match(/[A-Za-z0-9]/gi).join("").toLowerCase();
// (/[A-Za-z0-9]/gi) above makes str alphanumeric
for(var i = 0; i < Math.floor(str.length/2); i++) { //only need to run for half the string length
if(str.charAt(i) !== str.charAt(str.length-i-1)) { // uses !== to compare characters one-by-one from the beginning and end
return "Try again.";
}
}
return "Palindrome!";
}
palindrome("A man, a plan, a canal. Panama.");
//palindrome("4_2 (: /-\ :) 2-4"); // This solution would also work on something like this.
`
function checkPalindrome (str) {
var str = str.toLowerCase();
var original = str.split(' ').join('');
var reversed = original.split(' ').reverse().join('');
return (original === reversed);
}
`
This avoids regex while also dealing with strings that have spaces and uppercase...
function isPalindrome(str) {
str = str.split("");
var str2 = str.filter(function(x){
if(x !== ' ' && x !== ',') {
return x;
}
});
return console.log(str2.join('').toLowerCase()) == console.log(str2.reverse().join('').toLowerCase());
};
isPalindrome("A car, a man, a maraca"); //true
function myPolidrome(polidrome){
var string=polidrome.split('').join(',');
for(var i=0;i<string.length;i++){
if(string.length==1){
console.log("is polidrome");
}else if(string[i]!=string.charAt(string.length-1)){
console.log("is not polidrome");
break;
}else{
return myPolidrome(polidrome.substring(1,polidrome.length-1));
}
}
}
myPolidrome("asasdsdsa");
Thought I will share my solution using Array.prototype.filter(). filter()
filters the array based on boolean values the function returns.
var inputArray=["","a","ab","aba","abab","ababa"]
var outputArray=inputArray.filter(function isPalindrome(x){
if (x.length<2) return true;
var y=x.split("").reverse().join("");
return x==y;
})
console.log(outputArray);
This worked for me.
var number = 8008
number = number + "";
numberreverse = number.split("").reverse().join('');
console.log ("The number if reversed is: " +numberreverse);
if (number == numberreverse)
console.log("Yes, this is a palindrome");
else
console.log("Nope! It isnt a palindrome");
Here is a solution that works even if the string contains non-alphanumeric characters.
function isPalindrome(str) {
str = str.toLowerCase().replace(/\W+|_/g, '');
return str == str.split('').reverse().join('');
}