Arrows | Topcoder Archive

Problem Statement

In this problem, a left single arrow is defined as a "less than" character ('<') immediately followed by zero or more consecutive hyphen characters ('-'). A left double arrow is a "less than" character ('<') immediately followed by zero or more consecutive equals characters ('='). A right single arrow is zero or more hyphen characters ('-') immediately followed by a "greater than" character ('>'). A right double arrow is zero or more equals characters ('=') immediately followed by a "greater than" character ('>'). For example, the following are arrows (quotes for clarity only): "==>", "<-", "<", "<===", "--->", ">". The length of an arrow is the number of characters it contains.

You will be given a String s. Return the length of the longest arrow in s, or -1 if it does not contain any arrows.

Definition

Class:: Arrows
Method:: longestArrow
Parameters:: String
Returns:: int
Method signature:: int longestArrow(String s)
(be sure your method is public)

Notes

Arrows may overlap. See examples for further clarifications.

Constraints

s will contain between 1 and 50 characters, inclusive.
Each character in s will be one of '<', '>', '-' or '='.

Examples

```
"<--->--==>"
```
```
Returns: 4
```
The arrows contained in s in this case are, by order of appearance: "<", "<-", "<--", "<---", "--->", "-->", "->", ">", "==>", "=>" and ">". Note that many of these arrows, including some pairs with one left arrow and one right arrow, are overlapping.
```
"<<<<<<<<<<"
```
```
Returns: 1
```
All arrows are of length 1. Note that "<" is both a left single arrow and a left double arrow according to the definition.
```
"----==-"
```
```
Returns: -1
```
No arrows contained.
```
"<----=====>"
```
```
Returns: 6
```

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