TopCoder problem "EncodedSum" used in SRM 334 (Division I Level One)



Problem Statement

    

You are given a String[] numbers, each element of which represents a positive integer written using the letters 'A' through 'J' instead of digits. You know that each letter represents exactly one digit, and each digit is represented by exactly one letter. You also know that none of the integers start with zero. Return the maximum possible sum of the given integers.

 

Definition

    
Class:EncodedSum
Method:maximumSum
Parameters:String[]
Returns:long
Method signature:long maximumSum(String[] numbers)
(be sure your method is public)
    
 

Constraints

-numbers will contain between 1 and 50 elements, inclusive.
-Each element of numbers will contain between 1 and 12 characters, inclusive.
-Each element of numbers will contain only uppercase letters between 'A' and 'J', inclusive.
-There will be at least one letter between 'A' and 'J', inclusive, that never occurs as the first character of any element of numbers.
 

Examples

0)
    
{"ABC",
 "BCA"}
Returns: 1875
B = 9
A = 8
C = 7
1)
    
{"ABCDEFGHIJ"}
Returns: 9876543210
2)
    
{"ABCDEFGHIJ", 
 "J"}
Returns: 9876543202
We can not use J as 0. So, 

J = 1
I = 0
3)
    
{"A", 
 "BB", 
 "CCC", 
 "DDDD", 
 "EEEEE", 
 "FFFFFF", 
 "GGGGGGG", 
 "HHHHHHHH", 
 "IIIIIIIII", 
 "AJJJJJJJJJ"}
Returns: 9973936905
4)
    
{"GHJIDDD",
 "AHHCCCA",
 "IIJCEJ",
 "F",
 "HDBIGFJAAJ"}
Returns: 9888114550

Problem url:

http://www.topcoder.com/stat?c=problem_statement&pm=7249

Problem stats url:

http://www.topcoder.com/tc?module=ProblemDetail&rd=10658&pm=7249

Writer:

Andrew_Lazarev

Testers:

PabloGilberto , brett1479 , Olexiy , marian

Problem categories:

Math