minimum-operations-to-transform-string

java

python3

python

javascript

typescript

csharp

golang

kotlin

swift

rust

ruby

dart

scala

elixir

erlang

racket

bash

mysql

mssql

postgresql

oraclesql

pythondata

Algorithms

You are given a string <code>s</code> consisting only of lowercase English letters.

You can perform the following operation any number of times (including zero):

<ul>
	<li>
	Choose any character <code>c</code> in the string and replace every occurrence of <code>c</code> with the next lowercase letter in the English alphabet.
	</li>
</ul>

Return the minimum number of operations required to transform <code>s</code> into a string consisting of only <code>&#39;a&#39;</code> characters.

Note: Consider the alphabet as circular, thus <code>&#39;a&#39;</code> comes after <code>&#39;z&#39;</code>.

&nbsp;
Example 1:

<div class="example-block">
Input: s = &quot;yz&quot;

Output: 2

Explanation:

<ul>
	<li>Change <code>&#39;y&#39;</code> to <code>&#39;z&#39;</code> to get <code>&quot;zz&quot;</code>.</li>
	<li>Change <code>&#39;z&#39;</code> to <code>&#39;a&#39;</code> to get <code>&quot;aa&quot;</code>.</li>
	<li>Thus, the answer is 2.</li>
</ul>
</div>

Example 2:

<div class="example-block">
Input: s = &quot;a&quot;

Output: 0

Explanation:

<ul>
	<li>The string <code>&quot;a&quot;</code> only consists of <code>&#39;a&#39;</code>​​​​​​​ characters. Thus, the answer is 0.</li>
</ul>
</div>

&nbsp;
Constraints:

<ul>
	<li><code>1 &lt;= s.length &lt;= 5 * 105</code></li>
	<li><code>s</code> consists only of lowercase English letters.</li>
</ul>