Smallest character in a string having minimum sum of distances between consecutive repetitions | Java program for the above approach ; Function to find the character repeats with minimum distance ; Stores the first and last index ; Initialize with - 1 ; Get the values of last and first occurence ; Update the first index ; Update the last index ; Initialize min ; Get the minimum ; Values must not be same ; Update the minimum distance ; return ans ; Driver Code ; Function Call
import java . util . * ; class GFG { static char minDistChar ( char [ ] s ) { int n = s . length ; int [ ] first = new int [ 26 ] ; int [ ] last = new int [ 26 ] ; for ( int i = 0 ; i < 26 ; i ++ ) { first [ i ] = - 1 ; last [ i ] = - 1 ; } for ( int i = 0 ; i < n ; i ++ ) { if ( first [ s [ i ] - ' a ' ] == - 1 ) { first [ s [ i ] - ' a ' ] = i ; } last [ s [ i ] - ' a ' ] = i ; } int min = Integer . MAX_VALUE ; char ans = '1' ; for ( int i = 0 ; i < 26 ; i ++ ) { if ( last [ i ] == first [ i ] ) continue ; if ( min > last [ i ] - first [ i ] ) { min = last [ i ] - first [ i ] ; ans = ( char ) ( i + ' a ' ) ; } } return ans ; } public static void main ( String [ ] args ) { String str = " geeksforgeeks " ; System . out . print ( minDistChar ( str . toCharArray ( ) ) ) ; } }