#2390
Removing Stars From a String
pupil · 450 · lc medium +26 · verified · 79% accepted · 3,211 likes · top 90%
Description
You are given a string s containing letters and star characters *.
Repeatedly apply the following operation until no stars remain:
- Select any * in s, delete the nearest non-star character to its left, and delete the * itself.
Return the resulting string. The operations can always be performed in a valid order and the answer is unique.
Example 1:
Input: s = "leet**cod*e"
Output: "lecoe"
Explanation: Performing the removals from left to right:
- The closest character to the 1st star is 't' in "leet**cod*e". s becomes "lee*cod*e".
- The closest character to the 2nd star is 'e' in "lee*cod*e". s becomes "lecod*e".
- The closest character to the 3rd star is 'd' in "lecod*e". s becomes "lecoe".
There are no more stars, so we return "lecoe".
Example 2:
Input: s = "erase*****"
Output: ""
Explanation: The entire string is removed, so we return an empty string.
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