Solution: Minimum Number of Moves to Make Palindrome

Statement

Given a string s, return the minimum number of moves required to transform s into a palindrome. In each move, you can swap any two adjacent characters in s.

Note: The input string is guaranteed to be convertible into a palindrome.

Constraints:

• $0 \le$ s.length $\le 2000$

• s consists of only lowercase English letters.

• s is guaranteed to be converted into a palindrome in a finite number of moves.

Solution

The main strategy for solving this problem is to use a two-pointer approach to progressively match characters from the outer ends of the string toward the center, while minimizing adjacent swaps to transform the string into a palindrome. For each character on the left side, the algorithm searches for its matching counterpart on the right side and moves it into place by repeatedly swapping adjacent characters. If a match is found, the right-side pointer moves inward; if no match is found, it indicates that the character is the center of an odd-length palindrome and is positioned accordingly.

Using the above intuition, the solution can be implemented as follows:

1. Initialize a variable, moves, with ...