Solution

Method 1 – Brute Force Simulation

Intuition

Since the word length is small (<= 50), we can simulate the process of removing the first k characters and appending them to the end, until the word returns to its initial state. The minimum time is the first t > 0 when the word matches the original.

Approach

Store the original word.
For t = 1 to n:
- Remove the first k characters and append them to the end.
- If the word matches the original, return t.
Edge case: If k == n, t = 1.

Code

C++

class Solution {
public:
    int minTimeToRevert(string word, int k) {
        string orig = word;
        int t = 0, n = word.size();
        do {
            t++;

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