Final answer:
A C++ function called checkBalance uses a stack to match opening and closing braces/parentheses in a string and returns the index at which an imbalance occurs or -1 if balanced.
Step-by-step explanation:
The function checkBalance in C++ can be implemented using a stack to track the opening and closing of parentheses or braces. If an opening brace or parenthesis is encountered, it is pushed onto the stack. When a closing brace or parenthesis is seen, the stack is popped and we check for a matching pair. If an imbalance is detected at any point, or if there are remaining elements in the stack after processing the entire string, we can determine the index of the imbalance or return the length of the string, respectively.
Example in C++:
int checkBalance(const std::string& code) {
std::stack<char> s;
for (int i = 0; i < code.length(); ++i) {
if (code[i] == '(' || code[i] == '') {
if (s.empty() || (s.top() == '(' && code[i] != ')') || (s.top() == '{' && code[i] != '}')) return i;
s.pop();
}
}
return s.empty() ? -1 : code.length();
}