<p>You are given a string <code>s</code> that consists of lowercase English letters.</p>

<p>A string is called <strong>special</strong> if it is made up of only a single character. For example, the string <code>&quot;abc&quot;</code> is not special, whereas the strings <code>&quot;ddd&quot;</code>, <code>&quot;zz&quot;</code>, and <code>&quot;f&quot;</code> are special.</p>

<p>Return <em>the length of the <strong>longest special substring</strong> of </em><code>s</code> <em>which occurs <strong>at least thrice</strong></em>, <em>or </em><code>-1</code><em> if no special substring occurs at least thrice</em>.</p>

<p>A <strong>substring</strong> is a contiguous <strong>non-empty</strong> sequence of characters within a string.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong class="example">Example 1:</strong></p>

<pre>
<strong>Input:</strong> s = &quot;aaaa&quot;
<strong>Output:</strong> 2
<strong>Explanation:</strong> The longest special substring which occurs thrice is &quot;aa&quot;: substrings &quot;<u><strong>aa</strong></u>aa&quot;, &quot;a<u><strong>aa</strong></u>a&quot;, and &quot;aa<u><strong>aa</strong></u>&quot;.
It can be shown that the maximum length achievable is 2.
</pre>

<p><strong class="example">Example 2:</strong></p>

<pre>
<strong>Input:</strong> s = &quot;abcdef&quot;
<strong>Output:</strong> -1
<strong>Explanation:</strong> There exists no special substring which occurs at least thrice. Hence return -1.
</pre>

<p><strong class="example">Example 3:</strong></p>

<pre>
<strong>Input:</strong> s = &quot;abcaba&quot;
<strong>Output:</strong> 1
<strong>Explanation:</strong> The longest special substring which occurs thrice is &quot;a&quot;: substrings &quot;<u><strong>a</strong></u>bcaba&quot;, &quot;abc<u><strong>a</strong></u>ba&quot;, and &quot;abcab<u><strong>a</strong></u>&quot;.
It can be shown that the maximum length achievable is 1.
</pre>

<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Constraints:</strong></p>

<ul>
	<li><code>3 &lt;= s.length &lt;= 50</code></li>
	<li><code>s</code> consists of only lowercase English letters.</li>
</ul>

class Solution:
    def maximumLength(self, s: str) -> int:
        
        #initialize a count for every char
        n = len(s)
        count = dict()
        count_reps = dict()
        for char in set(s):
            count[char] = [0] * (n+1)
        
        #count char at each index
        for i in range(len(s)):
            count[s[i]][i+1] =  count[s[i]][i] + 1
        print(count)

        #if the number of occurences of that char between start and end == no   of indexes, it means that it is a special string

        for size in range(n-2, 0, -1):
            start = 0
            end = start+size-1
            while end < n:
                if count[s[start]][end+1] - count[s[start]][start] == end - start + 1:
                    print(s[start:end+1], "special")
                    if s[start:end+1] in count_reps:
                        count_reps[s[start:end+1]] +=1
                    else:
                        count_reps[s[start:end+1]] = 1    
                start+=1
                end+=1
            print(count_reps)
            for key, val in count_reps.items():
                if val >=3:
                    return len(key)
        return -1
             

108