10455: USACO 2024 US Open Contest, Gold Problem 1. Cowreography
Description
There are two types of cows in the line – Guernseys and Holsteins. As such, Farmer John has documented the dance as a sequence of length-$N$ binary strings, where a $0$ represents a Guernsey, a $1$ represents a Holstein, and the overall string represents how the cows are arranged in the line.
Unfortunately, Farmer Nhoj (who choreographs for a rival team) has sabotaged the dance and erased all but the first and last binary strings! With a big competition quickly approaching, Farmer John must waste no time in reconstructing the dance.
Given these two binary strings, help Farmer John find the minimum number of moves in the dance!
Input
The second line contains the first binary string.
The third line contains the last binary string.
It is guaranteed that both binary strings contain the same number of ones.
Output
Constraints
- Inputs 4-5: $K=1$
- Inputs 6-7: Both strings have at most $8$ ones.
- Inputs 8-15: $N\le 5000$
- Inputs 16-23: No additional constraints.
Sample 1 Input
4 1
0111
1110
Sample 1 Output
3
0111 -> 1011 -> 1101 -> 1110
Sample 2 Input
5 2
11000
00011
Sample 2 Output
3
11000 -> 01100 -> 00110 -> 00011
Sample 3 Input
5 4
11000
00011
Sample 3 Output
2
11000 -> 10010 -> 00011