Delete characters to make fancy string

String

74.1% acceptance

Feb 25, 2026

1177

A fancy string is a string where no three consecutive characters are equal. Given a string s, delete the minimum possible number of characters from s to make it fancy. Return the final string after the deletion. It can be shown that the answer will always be unique.

Solution

Rust

Time O(n)

Space O(1)

LeetCode

solution.rs

impl Solution {
  pub fn make_fancy_string(s: String) -> String {
    let mut result = String::new();
    let mut count = 0;
    let mut prev = '\0';
    for ch in s.chars() {
      if ch == prev {
        count += 1;
      } else {
        count = 1;
        prev = ch;
      }
      if count <= 2 {
        result.push(ch);
      }
    }
    result
  }
}