LeetCode 800, Easy. Topics: Math, String, Enumeration. View on LeetCode.
Generate this problem as a practice environment: tested reference solution, 16 parametrized pytest cases, and a playground notebook:
Problem
The red-green-blue color "#AABBCC" can be written as "#ABC" in shorthand.
- For example,
"#15c" is shorthand for the color "#1155cc".
The similarity between the two colors "#ABCDEF" and "#UVWXYZ" is -(AB - UV)^2 - (CD - WX)^2 - (EF - YZ)^2.
Given a string color that follows the format "#ABCDEF", return a string represents the color that is most similar to the given color and has a shorthand (i.e., it can be represented as some "#XYZ").
Any answer which has the same highest similarity as the best answer will be accepted.
Examples
Constraints
color.length == 7
color[0] == '#'
color[i] is either digit or character in the range ['a', 'f'] for i > 0.
Solution
Reference implementation from solution.py on GitHub, full suite in test_solution.py:
Complexity
Last modified on September 7, 2026