Candy Problem
Description
LeetCode Problem 135.
There are n children standing in a line. Each child is assigned a rating value given in the integer array ratings.
You are giving candies to these children subjected to the following requirements:
- Each child must have at least one candy.
- Children with a higher rating get more candies than their neighbors.
Return the minimum number of candies you need to have to distribute the candies to the children.
Example 1:
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Input: ratings = [1,0,2]
Output: 5
Explanation: You can allocate to the first, second and third child with 2, 1, 2 candies respectively.
Example 2:
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Input: ratings = [1,2,2]
Output: 4
Explanation: You can allocate to the first, second and third child with 1, 2, 1 candies respectively.
The third child gets 1 candy because it satisfies the above two conditions.
Constraints:
- n == ratings.length
- 1 <= n <= 2 * 10^4
- 0 <= ratings[i] <= 2 * 10^4
Sample C++ Code
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int candy(vector<int> &ratings) {
// Do it in two directions.
// The first loop makes sure children with a higher rating
// get more candy than its left neighbor; the second loop
// makes sure children with a higher rating get more candy
// than its right neighbor.
int size=ratings.size();
if(size<=1)
return size;
vector<int> num(size,1);
for (int i = 1; i < size; i++) {
if(ratings[i]>ratings[i-1])
num[i]=num[i-1]+1;
}
for (int i= size-1; i>0 ; i--) {
if(ratings[i-1]>ratings[i])
num[i-1]=max(num[i]+1,num[i-1]);
}
int result=0;
for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
result+=num[i];
}
return result;
}