Nesting – Codility – Solution

Java solution to Codility Nesting problem (Lesson 7 – Stacks and Queues) which scored 100%. The problem is to determine whether a given string of single type of parentheses is properly nested.

The strategy (very similar to the Brackets problem) is to store opening brackets on a stack and pop elements off stack when encounter closing bracket and check that it’s a proper open bracket-close bracket match.


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package com.codility.lesson07.stacksqueues;

import java.util.Stack;

public class Nesting {
  public int solution(String S) {
    if(S.length() % 2 != 0) return 0; //all odd numbered strings can't be properly nested
   
    Stack  charStack = new Stack();
 
    for(int i=0; i<S.length(); i++) {
      char currentChar = S.charAt(i);
      if(isOpeningBracket(currentChar)) {
        charStack.push(currentChar);
      }
      else {
        //adding closing bracket to empty stack will never become properly nested
        if(charStack.size() == 0) {
          return 0;
        }
        char poppedChar = charStack.pop();
        if(isBracketMatch(poppedChar, currentChar)) {
          continue;
        }
        else return 0;
      }
    }
    if(charStack.isEmpty()) return 1;
   
    return 0;
  }

  boolean isOpeningBracket(char pC) {
    if(pC == '(') {
      return true;
    }
    return false;
  }
 
  boolean isBracketMatch(char pC1, char pC2) {
    if(pC1 == '(' && pC2 == ')') return true;
   
    return false;
  }
}

TestNG test cases for this problem which all passed:


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package test.com.codility.lesson07.stacksqueues;

import org.testng.Assert;
import org.testng.annotations.BeforeTest;
import org.testng.annotations.DataProvider;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;

import com.codility.lesson07.stacksqueues.Nesting;

public class NestingTests {
  private Nesting solution;
 
  @BeforeTest
  public void setUp() {
    solution = new Nesting();
  }

  @DataProvider(name = "test1")
  public Object [][] createData1() {
    return new Object [][] {
      new Object [] { "()()", 1 },
      new Object [] { "((()(()))())", 1 },
      new Object [] { "()", 1 },
      new Object [] { "((()))", 1 },
      new Object [] { "((()())())", 1 },
      new Object [] { ")(", 0 },
      new Object [] { "", 1 },
      new Object [] { "((((", 0 },
      new Object [] { "))", 0 },
    };
  }

  @Test(dataProvider = "test1")
  public void verifySolution(String pS, int pExpected) {   
    Assert.assertEquals(solution.solution(pS), pExpected);
  }
}