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This approach simulates the typing process using two stacks, one for each string. We iterate over each string, using the stack to build the string as it would appear after considering the backspace characters ('#'). By comparing the final stack representations, we can determine if the two strings are equivalent.
Time Complexity: O(n + m), where n and m are the lengths of s and t. Each character is processed once.
Space Complexity: O(n + m) due to the auxiliary arrays used to store the processed results of s and t.
1function backspaceCompare(s, t) {
2 function buildFinalString(str) {
3 const stack = [];
4 for (let ch of str) {
5 if (ch !== '#') {
6 stack.push(ch);
7 } else if (stack.length > 0) {
8 stack.pop();
9 }
10 }
11 return stack.join('');
12 }
13 return buildFinalString(s) === buildFinalString(t);
14}
15
16// Example usage:
17console.log(backspaceCompare("ab#c", "ad#c")); // true
18console.log(backspaceCompare("ab##", "c#d#")); // true
19console.log(backspaceCompare("a#c", "b")); // falseThe JavaScript solution uses an array to simulate stack behavior. For each character, we push it to the array if it's not a '#', and pop from the array if a '#' is encountered and the array isn't empty. We finally join the array into a string and compare the two processed strings.
This approach avoids extra space by using two pointers to traverse the strings backwards. By skipping over characters that are effectively backspaced due to a '#' character, we can compare corresponding positions in each string without actually building the resultant strings.
Time Complexity: O(n + m), where n and m are the lengths of s and t.
Space Complexity: O(1), since we only use constant space.
1#include <string>
using namespace std;
bool backspaceCompare(string s, string t) {
int si = s.length() - 1, ti = t.length() - 1;
int skipS = 0, skipT = 0;
while (si >= 0 || ti >= 0) {
while (si >= 0) {
if (s[si] == '#') { skipS++; si--; }
else if (skipS > 0) { skipS--; si--; }
else break;
}
while (ti >= 0) {
if (t[ti] == '#') { skipT++; ti--; }
else if (skipT > 0) { skipT--; ti--; }
else break;
}
if ((si >= 0 && ti >= 0 && s[si] != t[ti]) || ((si >= 0) != (ti >= 0))) {
return false;
}
si--; ti--;
}
return true;
}
int main() {
cout << backspaceCompare("ab#c", "ad#c") << endl; // true
cout << backspaceCompare("ab##", "c#d#") << endl; // true
cout << backspaceCompare("a#c", "b") << endl; // false
return 0;
}The C++ implementation employs two pointers to iteratively move backwards through the strings, adjusting their position and incrementing or decrementing the backspace counter as needed to simulate the typing effect. We directly compare the characters the pointers land on after properly ignoring the backspaced characters.