CareerCup

1.what if char a and b occurs multiple times, which means there are more than distances between them?
2. it needs to be a to b or could be from b to a?

Dont understand the question... Can you be bit more explicit?
How do you define distance in the input?

Actually, I think you can understand this question in another way, which the distance between the most nearest a and b <= distance or not

bool findABWithinDis(string s, char a, char b,int distance)
{
char c;
int firstPos = -1;
if((s.size()>1 )&& (distance < s.size()-2))
{
for(int i=0;i<s.size();i++)
{
if((firstPos > -1)&&(s[i]==c)&&(i-firstPos <=distance))
{
return true;
}
if(s[i] == a)
{
c = b;
firstPos = i;
}
else if(s[i] == b)
{
c = a;
firstPos = i;
}

}
}
return false;
}

and it is O(n).

// Assumptions: Null terminated string

// Test cases. If value of d is way to big then the code will return
// value of d cannot be -ve
// a and b can be same or different
// a and b can contain any values including '\0'

void func(char a,char b,char* str,int dist)
{
char t1,t2;
int flag=-1,count=dist,i=0;

// Distance cannot be less than or 0
if(dist<=0)
return ;


while(i+dist<strlen(str))
{
t1= str[i];
t2= str[i+dist];

if(t1==a)
flag=1;
else if(t1==b)
flag=2;

if(flag==1 && t2== b)
{
printf("Match found\n");
return;
}
else if(flag==2 && t2==a)
{
printf("Match found\n");
return;
}
flag=-1;
i++;
}
}