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Interview Question: Check if parenthesis are matched or not

by Kamal Rawat on Jan 02, 2012

Write a function to check if the input string has parenthesis in matched form or not. For example: ()(()) - Matched Parenthesis (() - UnMatched Parenthesis
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Today's Question:

Write a function which will accept a string of parenthesis ( '(' & ')' characters ) and return true if the parenthesis are matched and false otherwise (if the parenthesis are not matched). For example, for the below inpit Strings, the return values should be as follows:

Input String: (            UnMatched
Input String: ()           Matched
Input String: (()          UnMatched
Input String: ()()         Matched
Input String: (((())))     Matched
Input String: ()()(())     Matched
Input String: (((()        UnMatched
Solution:

To solve this problem we will use Stack.

Algorithm:

For each element in the String do the following:

1. If str[i] is '(' then push is in the Stack
2. If str[i] is ')' then look at the stack.
    If the stack is empty or the top element of the stack is NOT '(', unmatched parenthesis
        return false
    else
        pop Stack

After all the elements are done, Check the Stack,
If Stack has element
    return false
else
    return true

Code:

int matchedParenthesis(char *str)
{
    Stack s;
   
    for(int i=0; i<strlen(str); i++){
        if(str[i] == '(')
            s.push(str[i]);
        else if(str[i] == ')')
        {
            if(s.isEmpty() || s.pop() != '(')
                return false;
        }
    }
   
    if(! s.isEmpty())
        return false;
    else
        return
true;
}



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What if you want to remove the unmatched parentheses? How would you do it? Keep a counter? Thanks, Paul
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