SquareCounting | Topcoder Archive

Problem Statement

You are given a grid of characters, where each element describes a row. A solid square is a contiguous n x n section of characters, all of which have the same value. Return the number of solid squares in grid that aren't contained in larger solid squares.

Definition

Class:: SquareCounting
Method:: howMany
Parameters:: String[]
Returns:: int
Method signature:: int howMany(String[] grid)
(be sure your method is public)

Constraints

grid will contain between 1 and 10 elements, inclusive.
Each element of grid will contain between 1 and 10 characters, inclusive.
Each element grid will contain the same number of characters.
Each character in grid will be an uppercase letter ('A'-'Z').

Examples

```
{"AB",
 "CD"}
```
```
Returns: 4
```
Here we have 4 separate 1 x 1 squares.
```
{"AAB",
 "AAB",
 "BBB"}
```
```
Returns: 6
```
Here we have a 2 x 2 square of 'A's and 5 squares of 'B's (each 1 x 1). Thus we return 6.
```
{"AA",
 "AA",
 "AA"}
```
```
Returns: 2
```
The two possible 2 x 2 squares are counted.
```
{"AAA",
 "AAA",
 "AAA"}
```
```
Returns: 1
```
Only the large 3x3 square is countable.

{
"AAAAAAAAAA",
"AAAAAAAAAA",
"AAAAAAAAAA",
"AAAAAAAAAA",
"AAAAAAAAAA",
"AAAAAAAAAA",
"AAAAAAAAAA",
"AAAAAAAAAA",
"AAAAAAAAAA",
"AAAAAAAAAA"
}

Returns: 1

{
"AAAAAABBB",
"AAAAAABBB",
"AAAAAABBB",
"AAAAAABBB",
"AAAAAABBB",
"BBBAAAAAA",
"BBBAAAAAA",
"BBBAAAAAA",
"BBBAAAAAA",
"BBBAAAAAA"
}

Returns: 12

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