Smallest string period
The smallest period of a string s is the length of the shortest prefix p such that s is formed by repeating p a whole number of times (so "abcabcabc" has smallest period 3, "aaaa" has 1, and "abcd" has 4 because it does not repeat). Return that period length for the given s; for the empty string return 0. The string can be up to 10^5 characters, so brute-forcing every candidate period and verifying it character-by-character may be too slow.
Implement
smallest_period(s: str) → intExamples
in
["abcabcabc"]out3What a strong answer looks like
State your approach and its time/space complexity out loud before you optimize. Handle the edge cases (empty input, duplicates, overflow), and say why you chose this over the brute force. Green tests are the floor, not the grade.
0:00 of about 25 min
solution.py
InputExpectedGot
["abcabcabc"]3not run yetsample