Decompose string to form a valid expression - algorithm

Question

I am given a string S (of integers) and a number N. I want to insert arbitrary number of '+' in S so that the sum becomes equal to N.
Ex:<br>
S = 15112 and N = 28<br>
Ans is : 15+11+2<br>
S = 120012 and N = 33<br>
Ans is : 1+20+012<br>
S = 123 and N = 123<br>
Ans is : 123
given : |S| <= 120 and N <= 10^6
It is guarenteed that S and N are given such that it is always possible to form valid expression. Is there any algorithm which can solve this? I tried to think on it but couldn't come up with solution.

Answer 1

There may be more efficient ways to do this, but since you have nothing so far…
You can simply find all combinations of a boolean array that indicates whether a plus should exist between the numbers or not.
For example: with an input of 112134, 1 + 12 + 13 + 4 can be represented with the boolean array [true, false, true, false, true] indicating that there is a plus after the 1st, 3rd, and 5th numbers. The problem then reduces to finding which combinations add to your number. There are lot of ways to find combinations. Recursive backtracking is a classic.
In javascript/node this might look like this:
function splitOnIndexes(arr, a) {
// split the array into numbers based on the booleans
let current = "" + arr[0]
let output = []
for (let i = 0; i < a.length; i++) {
if (!a[i]) {
current += arr[i + 1]
} else {
output.push(current)
current = "" + arr[i + 1]
}
}
output.push(current)
return output
}
function findSum(input, total) {
function backtrack(n, k = 0, a = []) {
const sum = (arr) => arr.reduce((a, c) => a + parseInt(c), 0)
if (k === n) {
let ans = splitOnIndexes(input, a)
if (sum(ans) === total) {
console.log(ans.join(' + '))
}
} else {
k = k + 1
let c = [true, false]
for (let i = 0; i < 2; i++) {
a[k - 1] = c[i]
backtrack(n, k, a)
}
}
}
backtrack(input.length - 1)
}
findSum('15112', 28)
findSum('120012', 33)
findSum('123', 123)
As you can see, more than one answer is possible. Your first example is solved with both 15+1+12 and 15+11+2. If you only need one, you can of course stop early.

Answer 2

The idea is to use dynamic programming, you only care about sums between 0 and 10^6 and only have 120 possible indexes. if dp[i][j] = x, it means that from index x of the string, we went to index i (so we added a + before i) and we got a sum of j. This leads to a O(|S| * N) solution:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>
using namespace std;
string s;
long n;
long dp[123][1000001];
void solve (int index, long sum) {//index = what index of s still remains to scan. sum = the sum we have accumulated till now
if (sum >= n or index >= s.length()) return;
if (dp[index][sum] != -1) return;
if (index == n and sum == n) return;
long num = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < 7 && index + i < s.length(); i++) { //N has 6 digits at most
num = stoi(s.substr(index, i + 1));
solve(index + i + 1, sum + num);
if (sum + num <= n) {
dp[index + i + 1][sum + num] = index;
}
}
}
int main () {
cin >> s;
cin >> n;
for (int i = 0; i < 121; i++) {
for (int j = 0; j < 1000001; j++) {
dp[i][j] = -1;
}
}
solve(0, 0);
int sum = n;
int idx = s.length();
vector<string> nums;
//reconstruct solution
while (idx != 0) {
nums.push_back(s.substr(dp[idx][sum], idx - dp[idx][sum]));
idx = dp[idx][sum];
sum -= stoi(nums[nums.size() - 1]);
}
for (int i = nums.size() -1; i >= 0; i--) {
cout << nums[i];
if (i != 0) cout << "+";
}
}

Answer 3

This is a Ruby version with step by step explanation of the algorithm, so you can easily code in C++ (or I'll try later).
# Let's consider that we extracted the values from text, so we already have the string of int and the result as integer:
string_of_int = "15112"
result = 28
# The basic idea is to find a map (array) that tells how to group digits, for example
sum_map = [2, 1, 2]
# This means that string_of_int is mapped into the following numbers
# 15, 1, 12
# then sum the numbers, in this case 15+1+12 = 28
# For finding a the solution we need to map
# all the possible combinations of addition given the n digits of the string_of_int then check if the sum is equal to the result
# We call k the number of digits of string_of_int
# in ruby we can build an array called sum_maps
# containing all the possible permutations like this:
k = string_of_int.length # => 5
sum_maps = []
k.times do |length|
(1..k).to_a.repeated_permutation(length).each {|e| sum_maps << e if e.inject(:+) == k}
end
sum_maps
# => [[1, 5], [2, 4], [3, 3], [4, 2], [5, 1], [1, 1, 4], [1, 2, 3], [1, 3, 2], [1, 4, 1], [2, 1, 3], [2, 2, 2], [2, 3, 1], [3, 1, 2], [3, 2, 1], [4, 1, 1]]
# Now must check which of of the sum_map is giving us the required result.
#
# First, to keep the code short and DRY,
# better to define a couple of useful methods for the String class to use then:
class String
def group_digits_by(sum_map)
string_of_int_splitted = self.split("")
grouped_digits = []
sum_map.each { |n| grouped_digits << string_of_int_splitted.shift(n).join.to_i}
grouped_digits.reject { |element| element == 0 }
end
def sum_grouped_of_digits_by(sum_map)
group_digits_by(sum_map).inject(:+)
end
end
# So we can call the methods directly on the string
# for example, in ruby:
string_of_int.group_digits_by sum_map #=> [15, 1, 12]
string_of_int.sum_grouped_of_digits_by sum_map #=> 28
# Now that we have this metods, we just iterate through the sum_maps array
# and apply it for printing out the sm_map if the sum of grouped digits is equal to the result
# coded in ruby it is:
combinations = []
sum_maps.each { |sum_map| combinations << string_of_int.group_digits_by(sum_map) if string_of_int.sum_grouped_of_digits_by(sum_map) == result }
p combinations.uniq
# => [[15, 1, 12], [15, 11, 2]]
In short, written as a Ruby module it becomes:
module GuessAddition
class ::String
def group_digits_by(sum_map)
string_of_int_splitted = self.split("")
grouped_digits = []
sum_map.each { |n| grouped_digits << string_of_int_splitted.shift(n).join.to_i}
grouped_digits.reject { |element| element == 0 }
end
def sum_grouped_of_digits_by(sum_map)
group_digits_by(sum_map).inject(:+)
end
end
def self.guess_this(string_of_int, result)
k = string_of_int.length
sum_maps = []
k.times { |length| (1..k).to_a.repeated_permutation(length).each {|e| sum_maps << e if e.inject(:+) == k} }
combinations = []
sum_maps.each { |sum_map| combinations << string_of_int.group_digits_by(sum_map) if string_of_int.sum_grouped_of_digits_by(sum_map) == result }
combinations.uniq
end
end
p GuessAddition::guess_this("15112", 28) # => [[15, 1, 12], [15, 11, 2]]