3170. Lexicographically Minimum String After Removing Stars

You are given a string s. It may contain any number of '*' characters. Your task is to remove all '*' characters.

While there is a '*', do the following operation:

• Delete the leftmost '*' and the smallest non-'*' character to its left. If there are several smallest characters, you can delete any of them.

Return the lexicographically smallest resulting string after removing all '*' characters.

Example 1:

Input: s = "aaba*"

Output: "aab"

Explanation:

We should delete one of the 'a' characters with '*'. If we choose s[3], s becomes the lexicographically smallest.

Example 2:

Input: s = "abc"

Output: "abc"

Explanation:

There is no '*' in the string.

def clearStars(self, s: str) -> str:
	cnt = [[] for _ in range(26)]
	arr = list(s)
	for i, c in enumerate(arr):
		if c != "*":
			cnt[ord(c) - ord("a")].append(i)
		else:
			for j in range(26):
				if cnt[j]:
					arr[cnt[j].pop()] = "*"
					break
	return "".join(c for c in arr if c != "*")