LeetCode: Change Minimum Characters To Satisfy One Of Three Conditions Solution

1var minCharacters = function (a, b) {
2  const convertToArrayOfCharCode = str =>
3    str.split("").map((_, i) => str.charCodeAt(i) - 97)
4
5  // min step for a < b
6  const sol1 = (a, b) => {
7    let res = Infinity
8
9    // tricky part to make it strictly "<"
10    for (let i = 1; i < 26; i++) {
11      let count = 0
12      for (const ai of a) count += i <= ai
13      for (const bi of b) count += i > bi
14      res = Math.min(res, count)
15    }
16    return res
17  }
18
19  // min step to make a = b
20  const sol3 = (a, b) => {
21    let res = Infinity
22
23    for (let i = 0; i < 26; i++) {
24      let count = 0
25      for (const ai of a) count += i !== ai
26      for (const bi of b) count += i !== bi
27      res = Math.min(res, count)
28    }
29    return res
30  }
31
32  a = convertToArrayOfCharCode(a)
33  b = convertToArrayOfCharCode(b)
34  return Math.min(sol1(a, b), sol1(b, a), sol3(a, b))
35}