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Minimum Length of String After Deleting Similar Ends

Given a string s consisting only of characters 'a', 'b', and 'c'.

Given a string s consisting only of characters 'a', 'b', and 'c'. You are asked to apply the following algorithm on the string any number of times:

Return the minimum length of s after performing the above operation any number of times (possibly zero times).

Minimum Length of String After Deleting Similar Ends diagram

Example 1

Input: s = "ca"

Output: 2

Explanation: You can't remove any characters, so the string stays as is.

Example 2

Input: s = "cabaabac"

Output: 0

Explanation: An optimal sequence of operations is: - Take prefix = "c" and suffix = "c" and remove them, s = "abaaba". - Take prefix = "a" and suffix = "a" and remove them, s = "baab". - Take prefix = "b" and suffix = "b" and remove them, s = "aa". - Take prefix = "a" and suffix = "a" and remove them, s = "".

Example 3

Input: s = "aabccabba"

Output: 3

Explanation: An optimal sequence of operations is: - Take prefix = "aa" and suffix = "a" and remove them, s = "bccabb". - Take prefix = "b" and suffix = "bb" and remove them, s = "cca".

Constraints

  • 1 <= s.length <= 10^5
  • s only consists of characters 'a', 'b', and 'c'.

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