LeetCode-in-Java

3. Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters

Medium

Given a string s, find the length of the longest substring without repeating characters.

Example 1:

Input: s = “abcabcbb”

Output: 3

Explanation: The answer is “abc”, with the length of 3.

Example 2:

Input: s = “bbbbb”

Output: 1

Explanation: The answer is “b”, with the length of 1.

Example 3:

Input: s = “pwwkew”

Output: 3

Explanation: The answer is “wke”, with the length of 3. Notice that the answer must be a substring, “pwke” is a subsequence and not a substring.

Example 4:

Input: s = “”

Output: 0

Constraints:

To solve the Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters problem in Java using a Solution class, we’ll follow these steps:

  1. Define a Solution class with a method named lengthOfLongestSubstring.
  2. Initialize variables to keep track of the starting index of the substring (start), the maximum length (maxLen), and a hashmap to store characters and their indices.
  3. Iterate through the string s, and for each character:
    • Check if the character exists in the hashmap and its index is greater than or equal to the start index.
    • If found, update the start index to the index after the last occurrence of the character.
    • Update the maximum length if necessary.
    • Update the index of the current character in the hashmap.
  4. Return the maximum length found.
  5. Handle the edge case where the input string is empty.

Here’s the implementation:

import java.util.HashMap;

public class Solution {
    
    public int lengthOfLongestSubstring(String s) {
        // Initialize variables
        int start = 0;
        int maxLen = 0;
        HashMap<Character, Integer> map = new HashMap<>();
        
        // Iterate through the string
        for (int end = 0; end < s.length(); end++) {
            char ch = s.charAt(end);
            // If the character exists in the hashmap and its index is greater than or equal to the start index
            if (map.containsKey(ch) && map.get(ch) >= start) {
                // Update the start index to the index after the last occurrence of the character
                start = map.get(ch) + 1;
            }
            // Update the maximum length if necessary
            maxLen = Math.max(maxLen, end - start + 1);
            // Update the index of the current character in the hashmap
            map.put(ch, end);
        }
        
        return maxLen;
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Solution solution = new Solution();

        // Test cases
        String s1 = "abcabcbb";
        System.out.println("Example 1 Output: " + solution.lengthOfLongestSubstring(s1));

        String s2 = "bbbbb";
        System.out.println("Example 2 Output: " + solution.lengthOfLongestSubstring(s2));

        String s3 = "pwwkew";
        System.out.println("Example 3 Output: " + solution.lengthOfLongestSubstring(s3));

        String s4 = "";
        System.out.println("Example 4 Output: " + solution.lengthOfLongestSubstring(s4));
    }
}

This implementation provides a solution to the Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters problem in Java.