Skip to main content

Zigzag Conversion

Problem Statement

The string "PAYPALISHIRING" is written in a zigzag pattern on a given number of rows like this: (you may want to display this pattern in a fixed font for better legibility)

P   A   H   N
A P L S I I G
Y I R

And then read line by line: "PAHNAPLSIIGYIR"

Write the code that will take a string and make this conversion given a number of rows:

string convert(string s, int numRows);

Leetcode Link

Example 1:

Input: s = "PAYPALISHIRING", numRows = 3
Output: "PAHNAPLSIIGYIR"

Example 2:

Input: s = "PAYPALISHIRING", numRows = 4
Output: "PINALSIGYAHRPI"
Explanation:
P I N
A L S I G
Y A H R
P I

Example 3:

Input: s = "A", numRows = 1
Output: "A"

Constraints:

  • 1 <= s.length <= 1000
  • s consists of English letters (lower-case and upper-case), ',' and '.'.
  • 1 <= numRows <= 1000

Code

Python Code
class Solution:
def convert(self, s: str, numRows: int) -> str:
template = list(range(numRows)) + list(range(numRows - 2, 0, -1))

result = [''] * numRows
for i, char in enumerate(s):
result[template[i % len(template)]] += char
return ''.join(result)