LeetCode-in-Java

2186. Minimum Number of Steps to Make Two Strings Anagram II

Medium

You are given two strings s and t. In one step, you can append any character to either s or t.

Return the minimum number of steps to make s and t anagrams of each other.

An anagram of a string is a string that contains the same characters with a different (or the same) ordering.

Example 1:

Input: s = “leetcode”, t = “coats

Output: 7

Explanation:

“leetcodeas” and “coatsleede” are now anagrams of each other.

We used a total of 2 + 5 = 7 steps.

It can be shown that there is no way to make them anagrams of each other with less than 7 steps.

Example 2:

Input: s = “night”, t = “thing”

Output: 0

Explanation: The given strings are already anagrams of each other. Thus, we do not need any further steps.

Constraints:

Solution

public class Solution {
    public int minSteps(String s, String t) {
        int[] a = new int[26];
        for (int i = 0; i < s.length(); i++) {
            a[s.charAt(i) - 'a']++;
        }
        for (int i = 0; i < t.length(); i++) {
            a[t.charAt(i) - 'a']--;
        }
        int sum = 0;
        for (int j : a) {
            sum += Math.abs(j);
        }
        return sum;
    }
}