There are N children standing in a line. Each child is assigned a rating value.
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.
What is the minimum candies you must give?
Example 1:
Input: [1,0,2] Output: 5 Explanation: You can allocate to the first, second and third child with 2, 1, 2 candies respectively.
Example 2:
Input: [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.
class Solution:
def candy(self, ratings: List[int]) -> int:
res = [1]*len(ratings)
lbase = rbase = 1
# left scan
for i in range(1, len(ratings)):
lbase = lbase + 1 if ratings[i] > ratings[i-1] else 1
res[i] = lbase
# right scan
for i in range(len(ratings)-2, -1, -1):
rbase = rbase + 1 if ratings[i] > ratings[i+1] else 1
res[i] = max(rbase, res[i])
return sum(res)