Maximum Number of Balloons

Jun 23, 2026Madhav

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Description:

Given a string text, you want to use the characters of text to form as many instances of the word "balloon" as possible.

You can use each character in text at most once. Return the maximum number of instances that can be formed.

Example 1:

Input: text = "nlaebolko" Output: 1 Explanation: We can form one instance of the word "balloon".

Example 2:

Input: text = "loonbalxballpoon" Output: 2 Explanation: We can form two instances of the word "balloon".

Example 3:

Input: text = "leetcode" Output: 0 Explanation: We cannot form the word "balloon".

---

Approaches:

1. Frequency Counting Array

To find how many times we can form the word "balloon", we need to count the occurrences of its constituent characters in the input string text.

The word "balloon" requires:

• b: 1
• a: 1
• l: 2
• o: 2
• n: 1

1. Count Frequencies: Use a frequency array of size 26 (to represent the English alphabet) or a hash map to count the occurrences of every character in the text.
2. Calculate Limiting Factor: The maximum number of "balloon" words we can form is constrained by the character that appears the least relative to its required amount.
3. Find the Minimum: We take the minimum count among b, a, l/2, o/2, and n. We divide the counts of l and o by 2 because each instance of the word requires two of those letters.

Complexity

• Time Complexity: $O(N)$ where $N$ is the length of the string text. We only need to iterate through the string once to count the characters.
• Space Complexity: $O(1)$ because the frequency array is fixed at size 26, which is constant regardless of the input string's size.

---

Solutions:

C++

class Solution {
public:
    int maxNumberOfBalloons(string text) {
        vector<int> count(26, 0);
        
        // Count frequencies of all characters
        for (char c : text) {
            count[c - 'a']++;
        }
        
        // Find the minimum limiting character
        return min({
            count['b' - 'a'], 
            count['a' - 'a'], 
            count['l' - 'a'] / 2, 
            count['o' - 'a'] / 2, 
            count['n' - 'a']
        });
    }
};

Java

class Solution {
    public int maxNumberOfBalloons(String text) {
        int[] count = new int[26];
        
        // Count frequencies of all characters
        for (char c : text.toCharArray()) {
            count[c - 'a']++;
        }
        
        // Find the minimum limiting character
        return Math.min(count['b' - 'a'], 
               Math.min(count['a' - 'a'], 
               Math.min(count['l' - 'a'] / 2, 
               Math.min(count['o' - 'a'] / 2, count['n' - 'a']))));
    }
}

Python

from collections import Counter

class Solution:
    def maxNumberOfBalloons(self, text: str) -> int:
        # Count frequencies of all characters
        count = Counter(text)
        
        # Find the minimum limiting character
        return min(
            count['b'], 
            count['a'], 
            count['l'] // 2, 
            count['o'] // 2, 
            count['n']
        )

JavaScript

/**
 * @param {string} text
 * @return {number}
 */
var maxNumberOfBalloons = function(text) {
    const count = { b: 0, a: 0, l: 0, o: 0, n: 0 };
    
    // Count frequencies of all characters
    for (const char of text) {
        if (char in count) {
            count[char]++;
        }
    }
    
    // Find the minimum limiting character
    return Math.min(
        count.b,
        count.a,
        Math.floor(count.l / 2),
        Math.floor(count.o / 2),
        count.n
    );
};