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1006. Vowel Spellchecker

Array Hash Table String

Problem - Vowel Spellchecker

Medium

Given a wordlist, we want to implement a spellchecker that converts a query word into a correct word.

For a given query word, the spell checker handles two categories of spelling mistakes:

  • Capitalization: If the query matches a word in the wordlist (case-insensitive), then the query word is returned with the same case as the case in the wordlist.
    • Example: wordlist = ["yellow"], query = "YellOw": correct = "yellow"
    • Example: wordlist = ["Yellow"], query = "yellow": correct = "Yellow"
    • Example: wordlist = ["yellow"], query = "yellow": correct = "yellow"
  • Vowel Errors: If after replacing the vowels ('a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u') of the query word with any vowel individually, it matches a word in the wordlist (case-insensitive), then the query word is returned with the same case as the match in the wordlist.
    • Example: wordlist = ["YellOw"], query = "yollow": correct = "YellOw"
    • Example: wordlist = ["YellOw"], query = "yeellow": correct = "" (no match)
    • Example: wordlist = ["YellOw"], query = "yllw": correct = "" (no match)

In addition, the spell checker operates under the following precedence rules:

  • When the query exactly matches a word in the wordlist (case-sensitive), you should return the same word back.
  • When the query matches a word up to capitalization, you should return the first such match in the wordlist.
  • When the query matches a word up to vowel errors, you should return the first such match in the wordlist.
  • If the query has no matches in the wordlist, you should return the empty string.

Given some queries, return a list of words answer, where answer[i] is the correct word for query = queries[i].

 

Example 1:

Input: wordlist = ["KiTe","kite","hare","Hare"], queries = ["kite","Kite","KiTe","Hare","HARE","Hear","hear","keti","keet","keto"]
Output: ["kite","KiTe","KiTe","Hare","hare","","","KiTe","","KiTe"]

Example 2:

Input: wordlist = ["yellow"], queries = ["YellOw"]
Output: ["yellow"]

 

Constraints:

  • 1 <= wordlist.length, queries.length <= 5000
  • 1 <= wordlist[i].length, queries[i].length <= 7
  • wordlist[i] and queries[i] consist only of only English letters.

Solutions

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class Solution:
    def spellchecker(self, wordlist: List[str], queries: List[str]) -> List[str]:
        def remove_vowel(word):
            return "".join('*' if char in "aeiou" else char for char in word)

        correct_words = set(wordlist)
        words_capital = {}
        words_vowel = {}

        for word in wordlist:
            lower_word = word.lower()
            words_capital.setdefault(lower_word, word)
            words_vowel.setdefault(remove_vowel(lower_word), word)

        result = []
        for query in queries:
            if query in correct_words:
                result.append(query)
                continue

            query = query.lower()
            if query in words_capital:
                result.append(words_capital[query])
                continue

            query = remove_vowel(query)
            if query in words_vowel:
                result.append(words_vowel[query])
                continue

            result.append("")
        return result

Submission Stats:

  • Runtime: 31 ms (86.67%)
  • Memory: 20.2 MB (58.94%)