[Leet Code] Remove Outermost Parentheses

Matthew Boyd
2 min readSep 1, 2021

Leet Code: https://leetcode.com/problems/remove-outermost-parentheses/

Problem:

A valid parentheses string is either empty "", "(" + A + ")", or A + B, where A and B are valid parentheses strings, and + represents string concatenation.

  • For example, "", "()", "(())()", and "(()(()))" are all valid parentheses strings.

A valid parentheses string s is primitive if it is nonempty, and there does not exist a way to split it into s = A + B, with A and B nonempty valid parentheses strings.

Given a valid parentheses string s, consider its primitive decomposition: s = P1 + P2 + ... + Pk, where Pi are primitive valid parentheses strings.

Return s after removing the outermost parentheses of every primitive string in the primitive decomposition of s.

Example 1:

Input: s = "(()())(())"
Output: "()()()"
Explanation:
The input string is "(()())(())", with primitive decomposition "(()())" + "(())".
After removing outer parentheses of each part, this is "()()" + "()" = "()()()".

Example 2:

Input: s = "(()())(())(()(()))"
Output: "()()()()(())"
Explanation:
The input string is "(()())(())(()(()))", with primitive decomposition "(()())" + "(())" + "(()(()))".
After removing outer parentheses of each part, this is "()()" + "()" + "()(())" = "()()()()(())".

Example 3:

Input: s = "()()"
Output: ""
Explanation:
The input string is "()()", with primitive decomposition "()" + "()".
After removing outer parentheses of each part, this is "" + "" = "".

Solution:

class Solution(object):
def removeOuterParentheses(self, S):
"""
:type S: str
:rtype: str
"""
stack = []
answer = ""
for i in S:
stack.append(i)
if stack.count("(") == stack.count(")"):
stack.pop()
stack.pop(0)
answer += "".join(stack)
stack = []
return answer

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