The task is to minimize the length of resulting string after repeatedly removing a given substring. Note that after removal, new occurrences of the substring may be formed.
Example:
Given string: aaababa
String to remove: aba
Possibilities:
aaababa -> aaab
aaababa -> aaba -> a
So in this case the answer is 1.
This looks like a standard problem but i am unable to solve it. An even tougher version of the problem appeared on: https://www.hackerrank.com/contests/apc/challenges/reducto where instead of a single string, a set of strings can be removed. Sadly, an editorial is not available.
