Skip to main content
LeetCode 591, Hard. Topics: String, Stack. View on LeetCode. Generate this problem as a practice environment: tested reference solution, 30 parametrized pytest cases, and a playground notebook:

Problem

Given a string representing a code snippet, implement a tag validator to parse the code and return whether it is valid. A code snippet is valid if all the following rules hold:
  1. The code must be wrapped in a valid closed tag. Otherwise, the code is invalid.
  2. A closed tag (not necessarily valid) has exactly the following format : <TAG_NAME>TAG_CONTENT</TAG_NAME>. Among them, <TAG_NAME> is the start tag, and </TAG_NAME> is the end tag. The TAG_NAME in start and end tags should be the same. A closed tag is valid if and only if the TAG_NAME and TAG_CONTENT are valid.
  3. A valid TAG_NAME only contain upper-case letters, and has length in range [1,9]. Otherwise, the TAG_NAME is invalid.
  4. A valid TAG_CONTENT may contain other valid closed tags, cdata and any characters (see note1) EXCEPT unmatched <, unmatched start and end tag, and unmatched or closed tags with invalid TAG_NAME. Otherwise, the TAG_CONTENT is invalid.
  5. A start tag is unmatched if no end tag exists with the same TAG_NAME, and vice versa. However, you also need to consider the issue of unbalanced when tags are nested.
  6. A < is unmatched if you cannot find a subsequent >. And when you find a < or </, all the subsequent characters until the next > should be parsed as TAG_NAME (not necessarily valid).
  7. The cdata has the following format : <![CDATA[CDATA_CONTENT]]>. The range of CDATA_CONTENT is defined as the characters between <![CDATA[ and the first subsequent ]]>.
  8. CDATA_CONTENT may contain any characters. The function of cdata is to forbid the validator to parse CDATA_CONTENT, so even it has some characters that can be parsed as tag (no matter valid or invalid), you should treat it as regular characters.

Examples

Constraints

  • 1 <= code.length <= 500
  • code consists of English letters, digits, ’<’, ’>’, ’/’, ’!’, ’[’, ’]’, ’.’, and ’ ’.

Solution

Reference implementation from solution.py on GitHub, full suite in test_solution.py:

Complexity

Tags

Last modified on September 7, 2026