Dsa
Hashing
Medium
The Caesar Cipher Clusters
You are analyzing encrypted messages. Two strings are considered 'shift-equivalent' if one can be transformed into the other by shifting every character by the same constant K (wrapping around the alphabet). For example, 'abc' and 'bcd' are equivalent (shift of 1), and 'xyz' and 'zab' are equivalent (shift of 2). Given a list of N lowercase strings, find the size of the largest group where every string in the group is shift-equivalent to every other string.
Input Format:
The first line contains an integer N. The next N lines each contain a single string of lowercase English letters.
Output Format:
Print a single integer representing the size of the largest shift-equivalent group.
Example:
Input:
5
abc
bcd
ace
bdf
xyz
Output:
3
(Note: 'abc', 'bcd', and 'xyz' are in one group; 'ace' and 'bdf' are in another.)
Key concepts
hashingstring-normalizationfrequency-maps
Practise this out loud — free
Start a mock interview on THIS exact question — a voice AI interviewer opens with it, pushes back like a real onsite, then hands you an instant scorecard.
🎙 Practise this question now