Daily Coding Problem: Problem #290 [Easy]

Good morning!

Here's a solution to yesterday's problem.

This is your coding interview problem for today.

This problem was asked by Facebook.

On a mysterious island there are creatures known as Quxes which come in three colors: red, green, and blue. One power of the Qux is that if two of them are standing next to each other, they can transform into a single creature of the third color.

Given N Quxes standing in a line, determine the smallest number of them remaining after any possible sequence of such transformations.

For example, given the input ['R', 'G', 'B', 'G', 'B'], it is possible to end up with a single Qux through the following steps:

        Arrangement       |   Change
----------------------------------------
['R', 'G', 'B', 'G', 'B'] | (R, G) -> B
['B', 'B', 'G', 'B']      | (B, G) -> R
['B', 'R', 'B']           | (R, B) -> G
['B', 'G']                | (B, G) -> R
['R']                     |

We will be sending the solution tomorrow, along with tomorrow's question. As always, feel free to shoot us an email if there's anything we can help with.

Have a great day!

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