Writing a string in a spiral

Question

I had recently participated in coding competion sponsored by an company and there was this one question which I did not understood, as to what was it asking.

Here i

Answer 1

As I understand:

You have

ABCHIDGFE

You convert it to square (if possible)

A B C
H I D
G F E

And then make string going clockwise

A B C D E F G H I

And return this string

I'm not sure what to do if it's impossible to make square of it.