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383. Ransom Note

Hash Table String Counting

Problem - Ransom Note

Easy

Given two strings ransomNote and magazine, return true if ransomNote can be constructed by using the letters from magazine and false otherwise.

Each letter in magazine can only be used once in ransomNote.

 

Example 1:

Input: ransomNote = "a", magazine = "b"
Output: false

Example 2:

Input: ransomNote = "aa", magazine = "ab"
Output: false

Example 3:

Input: ransomNote = "aa", magazine = "aab"
Output: true

 

Constraints:

  • 1 <= ransomNote.length, magazine.length <= 105
  • ransomNote and magazine consist of lowercase English letters.

Solutions

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class Solution:
    def canConstruct(self, ransomNote: str, magazine: str) -> bool:
        count = Counter(magazine)
        for letter in ransomNote:
            if count[letter] <= 0:
                return False
            count[letter] -= 1

        return True

Submission Stats:

  • Runtime: 16 ms (61.68%)
  • Memory: 17.9 MB (54.26%)