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Rearrange String by Criteria
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Rearrange String by Criteria

MediumPython

Problem

Can you write a function that rearranges a string based on specific criteria?

Implement rearrange_string(s) so characters appear in descending order of frequency. When two characters have the same frequency, place the alphabetically smaller character first. The input contains lowercase English letters, and repeated characters must remain repeated.

Contract

  • Input: a non-empty string s containing lowercase English letters.
  • Output: a string containing exactly the same characters as s, rearranged by the stated rules.

Return an empty string only if the input is empty.

Constraints

  • 0 <= len(s) <= 100000
  • s contains only lowercase English letters
  • The output must contain exactly the same character counts as the input
  • Characters with equal frequency are ordered alphabetically

Function Signature

def rearrange_string(s):
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