VegetableField | Topcoder Archive

Problem Statement

We want to buy a rectangular plot on a rectangular vegetable field. We want our plot to be as big as possible, but we only have the resources to grow a maximum of 2 different kinds of vegetables on it. You are given a String[] field, where each character represents a square in the field. All squares are of equal size. The j-th character of the i-th element of field denotes the kind of vegetable that grows in the square at row i, column j - it's an uppercase letter ('A' - 'Z'), where each letter denotes a different kind of vegetable. Return the area of the biggest plot we can buy.

Definition

Class:: VegetableField
Method:: biggestPlot
Parameters:: String[]
Returns:: int
Method signature:: int biggestPlot(String[] field)
(be sure your method is public)

Constraints

field will contain between 2 and 20 elements, inclusive.
Each element of field will contain between 2 and 20 characters, inclusive.
All elements of field will contain the same number of characters.
Each character in each element of field will be an uppercase letter ('A' - 'Z').

Examples

```
{ "AAA",
  "AAA",
  "AAA"  }
```
```
Returns: 9
```
Only one type of vegetable grows here so we can buy the whole field.

{ "ABCDEFGH",
  "IJKLMNOP",
  "QRSTUVWX"  }

Returns: 2

We can buy only 2 adjacent squares and nothing more.

{ "AAAA",
  "ABBC",
  "BBCA",
  "DCAA"  }

Returns: 6

{ "AUFLKNCSLKX",
  "OWVGWXGHKFB",
  "MUFZEELAWOR",
  "CZCGHXVGWDW",
  "EPNSDSJSKWT",
  "APULZGHXMEK",
  "UVMQQUFMYYQ",
  "XWLMVXKSENF",
  "KGZJUDQOAXA",
  "UKIBGOSXSZL"  }

Returns: 4

{ "BDCDCCCCBED",
  "ECEAADCEACA",
  "AABEABBACBB",
  "CEBEDDDDBDE",
  "DBCACCABBDE",
  "CCEECDCECBB",
  "CCADACEDDCE",
  "DDCEAACAEBB",
  "CACCEEAACCA",
  "DBAACCEEACD",
  "DDBAACBEEAE"  }

Returns: 8

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