1046. Last Stone Weight

Easy


You are given an array of integers stones where stones[i] is the weight of the ith stone.

We are playing a game with the stones. On each turn, we choose the heaviest two stones and smash them together. Suppose the heaviest two stones have weights x and y with x <= y. The result of this smash is:

  • If x == y, both stones are destroyed, and
  • If x != y, the stone of weight x is destroyed, and the stone of weight y has new weight y - x.

At the end of the game, there is at most one stone left.

Return the weight of the last remaining stone. If there are no stones left, return 0.

 

Example 1:

Input: stones = [2,7,4,1,8,1]
Output: 1
Explanation: 
We combine 7 and 8 to get 1 so the array converts to [2,4,1,1,1] then,
we combine 2 and 4 to get 2 so the array converts to [2,1,1,1] then,
we combine 2 and 1 to get 1 so the array converts to [1,1,1] then,
we combine 1 and 1 to get 0 so the array converts to [1] then that's the value of the last stone.

Example 2:

Input: stones = [1]
Output: 1

 

Constraints:

  • 1 <= stones.length <= 30
  • 1 <= stones[i] <= 1000




 class Solution:
    def lastStoneWeight(self, stones: List[int]) -> int:

        stones = [-x for x in stones]
        heapq.heapify(stones)

        while len(stones)>1:
            #print(stones)
            y = -heapq.heappop(stones)
            x = -heapq.heappop(stones)
            #print(y, x)

            if x!=y:
                heapq.heappush(stones, -(y-x))

        if len(stones) == 0:
            return 0
        return -stones[0]

Random Note


Floyd's Tortoise and Hare is used to detect linked list cycle.