2558. Take Gifts From the Richest Pile - Explanation

Problem Link

Description

You are given an integer array gifts denoting the number of gifts in various piles. Every second, you do the following:

  • Choose the pile with the maximum number of gifts.
  • If there is more than one pile with the maximum number of gifts, choose any.
  • Reduce the number of gifts in the pile to the floor of the square root of the original number of gifts in the pile.

Return the number of gifts remaining after k seconds.

Example 1:

Input: gifts = [25,64,9,4,100], k = 4

Output: 29

Explanation :
The gifts are taken in the following way:

  • In the first second, the last pile is chosen and 10 gifts are left behind.
  • Then the second pile is chosen and 8 gifts are left behind.
  • After that the first pile is chosen and 5 gifts are left behind.
  • Finally, the last pile is chosen again and 3 gifts are left behind.
    The final remaining gifts are [5,8,9,4,3], so the total number of gifts remaining is 29.

Example 2:

Input: gifts = [1,1,1,1], k = 4

Output: 4

Constraints:

  • 1 <= gifts.length <= 1000
  • 1 <= gifts[i] <= 1,000,000,000
  • 1 <= k <= 1000

Company Tags

Please upgrade to NeetCode Pro to view company tags.



1. Simulation

class Solution:
    def pickGifts(self, gifts: List[int], k: int) -> int:
        for _ in range(k):
            maxIdx = 0
            for i in range(1, len(gifts)):
                if gifts[i] > gifts[maxIdx]:
                    maxIdx = i
            gifts[maxIdx] = int(sqrt(gifts[maxIdx]))
        return sum(gifts)

Time & Space Complexity

  • Time complexity: O(nk)O(n * k)
  • Space complexity: O(1)O(1) extra space.

Where nn is the size of input array, kk is the number of seconds.


2. Max-Heap

class Solution:
    def pickGifts(self, gifts: List[int], k: int) -> int:
        for i in range(len(gifts)):
            gifts[i] = -gifts[i]
        heapq.heapify(gifts)

        for _ in range(k):
            n = -heapq.heappop(gifts)
            heapq.heappush(gifts, -floor(sqrt(n)))

        return -sum(gifts)

Time & Space Complexity

  • Time complexity:
    • O(n+klogn)O(n + k \log n) in Python.
    • O(nlogn+klogn)O(n \log n + k \log n) in other languages.
  • Space complexity: O(n)O(n)

Where nn is the size of input array, kk is the number of seconds.