LeetCode 68, Hard. Topics: Array, String, Simulation. View on LeetCode.
Generate this problem as a practice environment: tested reference solution, 18 parametrized pytest cases, and a playground notebook:
Problem
Given an array of strings words and a width max_width, format the text such that each line has exactly max_width characters and is fully (left and right) justified.
You should pack your words in a greedy approach; that is, pack as many words as you can in each line. Pad extra spaces ' ' when necessary so that each line has exactly max_width characters.
Extra spaces between words should be distributed as evenly as possible. If the number of spaces on a line does not divide evenly between words, the empty slots on the left will be assigned more spaces than the slots on the right.
For the last line of text, it should be left-justified, and no extra space is inserted between words.
Note:
- A word is defined as a character sequence consisting of non-space characters only.
- Each word’s length is guaranteed to be greater than 0 and not exceed
max_width.
- The input array
words contains at least one word.
Examples
Constraints
- 1 <= words.length <= 300
- 1 <= words[i].length <= 20
- words[i] consists of only English letters and symbols.
- 1 <= max_width <= 100
- words[i].length <= max_width
Solution
Reference implementation from solution.py on GitHub, full suite in test_solution.py:
Complexity
NeetCode All. Last modified on September 7, 2026