Find minimum cost in string
Last updated: August 15, 2025
Quick Overview
Given a string consisting of lowercase letters, determine the minimum cost to convert the string into a palindrome by removing characters. The cost of removing a character is defined as its ASCII value. Return the minimum total cost required to achieve this transformation.
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August 15, 2025161
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Given a string consisting of lowercase letters, determine the minimum cost to convert the string into a palindrome by removing characters. The cost of removing a character is defined as its ASCII value. Return the minimum total cost required to achieve this transformation.
Coding interviews at Figma focus on problem-solving approach as much as the final solution. The interviewer wants to see you break down the problem, consider edge cases, and optimize iteratively. Communication throughout the process is key.
What the Interviewer Expects
- Quickly identify the optimal approach and its theoretical basis
- Handle complex algorithm design with multiple interacting components
- Write concise, elegant code under time pressure
- Prove correctness of your approach and discuss alternative solutions
- Optimize beyond the obvious: discuss constant factor improvements
- Address follow-up variations and explain how the solution generalizes
Key Topics to Cover
How to Approach This
- Clarify input constraints and edge cases before writing code.
- Walk through your approach verbally and confirm with the interviewer before coding.
- Start with a brute force solution, then optimize. Mention time and space complexity.
- Test your solution with examples, including edge cases like empty input or duplicates.
- Consider common patterns: sliding window, two pointers, hash map, BFS/DFS, dynamic programming.
Possible Follow-up Questions
- Can you solve this in a single pass?
- How would your solution change if the input was sorted?
- Can you solve this iteratively instead of recursively (or vice versa)?
- How would you test this solution thoroughly?
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Problem Analysis
To solve the problem of converting a string into a palindrome at the minimum cost, we can utilize a two-pointer approach. The reason this applies here is that a palindrome reads the same forwards and ...
Approach
- Initialize two pointers:
leftat the start of the string andrightat the end. - Compare the characters at these pointers:
- If they are the same, move both pointers towards the center (`le...
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