IBM Online Assessment (OA) January 17th, 2026 || Coding Questions & Solutions | HackerRank Jan2026 | Minimum Cost String Transformation

Minimum Cost String Transformation Problem Statement: Given two strings s and t, determine the minimum total cost required to transform s into t using the following operation any number of times, including zero: Select an index i such that 0 <= i <length of s. Remove the character at index i. Concatenate the remaining characters in order. The step costs i units. If the transformation is not possible, return -1. Constraints: 1 <= length of  s, t <= 2 *10^5 ...