Facebook Pixel

3582. Generate Tag for Video Caption

EasyStringSimulation
Leetcode Link

Problem Description

You are given a string caption representing the caption for a video.

The following actions must be performed in order to generate a valid tag for the video:

  1. Combine all words in the string into a single camelCase string prefixed with '#'. A camelCase string is one where the first letter of all words except the first one is capitalized. All characters after the first character in each word must be lowercase.
  2. Remove all characters that are not an English letter, except the first '#'.
  3. Truncate the result to a maximum of 100 characters.

Return the tag after performing the actions on caption.

Quick Interview Experience
Help others by sharing your interview experience
Have you seen this problem before?

Intuition

To create a valid tag, it's important to follow each step in the order described. First, since we need camelCase form, we should split the caption into words and format them: make the first word all lowercase, and make each following word start with a capital letter. Then, since only English letters and the first # are allowed, we must remove any non-letter symbols from the concatenated string. Finally, because there's a limit of 100 characters, it's necessary to ensure the final result doesn't exceed this limit. Each of these requirements can be addressed individually and simply, making the problem mainly one of string processing and step-by-step transformation.

Solution Approach

The solution involves a straightforward simulation of each step described in the problem:

  1. Splitting and Formatting the Words:

    • Use caption.split() to divide the input string into words.
    • For each word after splitting:
      • Capitalize the first letter and make the rest lowercase using word.capitalize().
      • For the first word, override this capitalization by making all letters lowercase, as required for camelCase.
  2. Combining Words and Adding Prefix:

    • Join all processed words together without spaces using "".join(words).
    • Add the # prefix at the start by concatenating "#" + ...".
  3. Removing Non-Letter Characters:

    • After combining, loop through the characters of the result, keep only alphabetical letters (using c.isalpha()), but always retain the initial '#'.
    • Build the new string by iterating over each character and checking if it should be included.
  4. Truncating to 100 Characters:

    • The final string is sliced using [:100] to ensure it doesn't exceed 100 characters, as required.

The main tools used here are string splitting and manipulation, as well as list and string operations. The code leverages Python's string methods and list comprehensions for clean, readable processing.

Ready to land your dream job?

Unlock your dream job with a 2-minute evaluator for a personalized learning plan!

Start Evaluator

Example Walkthrough

Let's use the caption: "Summer 2024! Ready-Set Go?"

Step 1: Split and Format Words

  • Split into words: ["Summer", "2024!", "Ready-Set", "Go?"]
  • Format for camelCase:
    • First word: "summer" (all lowercase)
    • Remaining words: "2024!""2024!" (capitalize has no effect), "Ready-Set""Ready-set", "Go?""Go?"
  • Combined formatting: ["summer", "2024!", "Ready-set", "Go?"]

Step 2: Combine and Prefix

  • Concatenate without spaces: "summer2024!Ready-setGo?"
  • Add prefix: "#summer2024!Ready-setGo?"

Step 3: Remove Non-Letter Characters (besides the first #)

  • Go through each character, keep only the leading '#' and letters:
    • Result: "#summerReadysetGo"
    • ("2024!", "-", and "?" are all removed as non-letter characters.)

Step 4: Truncate to 100 Characters

  • Current length: 18, which is less than 100.
  • Final result: "#summerReadysetGo"

So, for the caption "Summer 2024! Ready-Set Go?", the generated tag is: #summerReadysetGo

Solution Implementation

1class Solution:
2    def generateTag(self, caption: str) -> str:
3        # Split the caption into individual words and capitalize each word
4        words = [word.capitalize() for word in caption.split()]
5
6        # Ensure the first word starts with a lowercase letter
7        if words:
8            words[0] = words[0].lower()
9
10        # Concatenate all words to form a tag and prefix with '#'
11        tag = "#" + "".join(words)
12
13        # Limit the resulting tag to a maximum of 99 characters
14        return tag[:99]
15
1class Solution {
2    /**
3     * Generates a tag from the given caption in hashtag style.
4     * The first word is in lowercase, subsequent words are capitalized.
5     * The result is prefixed with '#', and output is limited to 100 characters.
6     *
7     * @param caption the input string to generate the tag from
8     * @return the formatted tag string
9     */
10    public String generateTag(String caption) {
11        // Trim the caption and split it into words using whitespace as delimiter
12        String[] words = caption.trim().split("\\s+");
13        // Initialize a StringBuilder with the hashtag prefix
14        StringBuilder tagBuilder = new StringBuilder("#");
15
16        // Iterate through the split words
17        for (int i = 0; i < words.length; i++) {
18            String word = words[i];
19            // Skip empty words (caused by consecutive spaces)
20            if (word.isEmpty()) {
21                continue;
22            }
23
24            // Convert word to lowercase
25            word = word.toLowerCase();
26            if (i == 0) {
27                // First word remains fully in lowercase
28                tagBuilder.append(word);
29            } else {
30                // Capitalize the first letter, leave the rest in lowercase
31                tagBuilder.append(Character.toUpperCase(word.charAt(0)));
32                if (word.length() > 1) {
33                    tagBuilder.append(word.substring(1));
34                }
35            }
36
37            // If we've reached or exceeded the length cap, stop processing further words
38            if (tagBuilder.length() >= 100) {
39                break;
40            }
41        }
42
43        // Ensure the final tag does not exceed 100 characters
44        return tagBuilder.length() > 100 ? tagBuilder.substring(0, 100) : tagBuilder.toString();
45    }
46}
47
1class Solution {
2public:
3    // Generates a tag from the input caption.
4    string generateTag(string caption) {
5        istringstream input_stream(caption);   // To split words by spaces
6        string word;
7        ostringstream tag;                     // To build the result hashtag
8        tag << "#";
9
10        bool isFirstWord = true;               // To track the first word for lowercase
11        while (input_stream >> word) {
12            // Convert word to lowercase
13            transform(word.begin(), word.end(), word.begin(), ::tolower);
14
15            if (isFirstWord) {
16                tag << word;
17                isFirstWord = false;
18            } else {
19                // Capitalize first letter for subsequent words (CamelCase)
20                word[0] = toupper(word[0]);
21                tag << word;
22            }
23
24            // If the tag length has reached or exceeded 100, exit loop
25            if (tag.str().length() >= 100) {
26                break;
27            }
28        }
29
30        string result = tag.str();
31        // Ensure the tag does not exceed 100 characters in length
32        if (result.length() > 100) {
33            result = result.substr(0, 100);
34        }
35        return result;
36    }
37};
38
1/**
2 * Converts a caption into a single camel-cased hashtag string.
3 * Words are concatenated together with the first word in lowercase,
4 * subsequent words capitalized, and prefixed with '#'.
5 * Maximum length of result is 100 characters (including the '#').
6 *
7 * @param caption - The input string to be converted.
8 * @returns The generated hashtag string.
9 */
10function generateTag(caption: string): string {
11    // Split caption into an array of non-empty words
12    const words: string[] = caption.trim().split(/\s+/);
13
14    // Initialize the result with '#'
15    let result: string = '#';
16
17    for (let i = 0; i < words.length; i++) {
18        // Convert current word to lowercase
19        const word: string = words[i].toLowerCase();
20
21        // Add the word to result, capitalizing first letter if not the first word
22        if (i === 0) {
23            result += word;
24        } else {
25            result += word.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + word.slice(1);
26        }
27
28        // Truncate the result to 100 characters if necessary
29        if (result.length >= 100) {
30            result = result.slice(0, 100);
31            break;
32        }
33    }
34
35    return result;
36}
37

Time and Space Complexity

The time complexity is O(n), and the space complexity is O(n), where n is the length of the caption string.


Discover Your Strengths and Weaknesses: Take Our 2-Minute Quiz to Tailor Your Study Plan:

What's the relationship between a tree and a graph?


Recommended Readings

Want a Structured Path to Master System Design Too? Don’t Miss This!

Load More