38. Count and Say

Posted 2021-01-13 jessie2009

The count-and-say sequence is the sequence of integers with the first five terms as following:

1.     1
2.     11
3.     21
4.     1211
5.     111221

1 is read off as "one 1" or 11.
11 is read off as "two 1s" or 21.
21 is read off as "one 2, then one 1" or 1211.

Given an integer n where 1 ≤ n ≤ 30, generate the nth term of the count-and-say sequence.

Note: Each term of the sequence of integers will be represented as a string.

 

Example 1:

Input: 1
Output: "1"

Example 2:

Input: 4
Output: "1211"

//Time: O(n * m), Space: O(1)    
public String countAndSay(int n) {
        if (n == 1) {
            return "1";
        }
        
        String pre = "1";
        
        for (int i = 2; i <= n; i++) {
            int count = 1;
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
            
            for (int j = 1; j <= pre.length(); j++) {
                if (j == pre.length() || pre.charAt(j) != pre.charAt(j - 1)) {
                    sb.append(count);
                    sb.append(pre.charAt(j - 1));
                    count = 1;
                } else {
                    count++;
                }
            }
            
            pre = sb.toString();
        }
        
        return pre;
    }