2379 - Minimum Recolors to Get K Consecutive Black Blocks (Easy)

Problem Statement

You are given a 0-indexed string blocks of length n, where blocks[i] is either 'W' or 'B', representing the color of the ith block. The characters 'W' and 'B' denote the colors white and black, respectively.

You are also given an integer k, which is the desired number of consecutive black blocks.

In one operation, you can recolor a white block such that it becomes a black block.

Returnthe minimum number of operations needed such that there is at least one occurrence ofkconsecutive black blocks.

Example 1:

Input: blocks = "WBBWWBBWBW", k = 7
Output: 3
Explanation:
One way to achieve 7 consecutive black blocks is to recolor the 0th, 3rd, and 4th blocks
so that blocks = "BBBBBBBWBW". 
It can be shown that there is no way to achieve 7 consecutive black blocks in less than 3 operations.
Therefore, we return 3.

Example 2:

Input: blocks = "WBWBBBW", k = 2
Output: 0
Explanation:
No changes need to be made, since 2 consecutive black blocks already exist.
Therefore, we return 0.

Constraints:

• n == blocks.length
• 1 <= n <= 100
• blocks[i] is either 'W' or 'B'.
• 1 <= k <= n

Approach 1: Brute Force

Written by @wingkwong

class Solution {
public:
    int minimumRecolors(string blocks, int k) {
        int n = blocks.size(), ans = 1e9;
		// the idea is to try all positions as a starting point
        for (int i = 0; i + k <= n; i++) {
		    // count the number of 'W' in a given window size `k`
            int cnt = 0;
            for (int j = 0; j < k; j++) {
			    // if it is 'W', we can recolor it
                if (blocks[i + j] == 'W') {
                    cnt += 1;
                }
            }
            // keep track of the min value
            ans = min(ans, cnt);
        }
        return ans;
    }
};