LongestRun | Topcoder Archive

Problem Statement

Given a collection of n strings, there are n! ways to concatenate them into a single string. Create a class LongestRun that contains method runLength that takes a String[] collection as input and returns the length of the longest run that can be formed by concatenating the strings.

A run is a sequence of adjacent identical characters. For example, "CACAAABBQ" contains a run of 2 B's and a run of 3 A's (as well as four other runs of length 1).

Definition

Class:: LongestRun
Method:: runLength
Parameters:: String[]
Returns:: int
Method signature:: int runLength(String[] collection)
(be sure your method is public)

Constraints

collection contains between 1 and 50 elements inclusive
each element of collection contains between 1 and 50 characters inclusive
each element of collection contains only uppercase letters, 'A'-'Z'

Examples

```
{"ABC", "CBBB", "CC", "ABCDEFG"}
```
```
Returns: 4
```
We can get a run of 4 'C's by concatenating as follows: "ABC" + "CC" + "CBBB" + "ABCDEFG" -> "ABCCCCBBBABCDEFG"

{"ABC", "CBBBC","ABCDEFG", "AD", "AE", "AF"}

Returns: 3

Any concatenation of these will have a run of 3 'B's

{"GOOD","DOG","EGG","DO","GIGABYTE","OOO","G","G"}

Returns: 5

```
{"AAABBBBAAA","BAABBBBAB"}
```
```
Returns: 4
```
```
{"AAABBBBAAA","AABBBBA"}
```
```
Returns: 5
```

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