Interview with Christope Verbinnen from Lookout

interview_lookout.txt

Problem: Implement an algorithim to compress strins such as

aaaabbccccccccdddedaaa
4a2b8c3d1e1d3a


Fernando's solution: pseudocode

compress(s string) {

    if s is empty {
        return s
    }

  ocurrence map[char, int] = // empty...
  
  lastChar = null
  compressed = ""
  count = 0
  
  foreach c in s {
      if lastChar == null || c == lastChar {
          count++
      }
      else {
          compressed += count + lastChar
          count = 0
          lastChar = c
      }
  }

  return compressed
}


test cases:

compress("") -> ""
compress("aaabbbaaa") -> "3a3b3a"
compress("abcdef") -> "1a1b1c1d1e1f")