712384. Assign Cookies
Assign Cookies
Summary
The "Assign Cookies" problem is an easy algorithmic challenge that involves sorting and arrays. Given two integer arrays, cookies and kids, where each element in cookies represents the number of cookies a kid wants, and each element in kids represents the age of the kids, we need to assign cookies to the kids such that the difference between the maximum and minimum number of cookies assigned is minimized. The problem requires us to write an algorithm that solves this problem efficiently.
Detailed Explanation
The key insight here is that we can sort both arrays based on their values. This allows us to pair up the smallest kid with the largest number of cookies, the second-smallest kid with the second-largest number of cookies, and so on. This way, we ensure that each kid gets at least one cookie, and the difference between the maximum and minimum number of cookies assigned is minimized.
Here's a step-by-step breakdown of the solution:
- Sort both
cookiesandkidsarrays in ascending order. - Initialize two pointers,
iforcookiesandjforkids, to the start of their respective arrays. - While
iis less than the length ofcookiesandjis less than the length ofkids:- Assign the cookie at index
ito the kid at indexj. - Increment
iand decrementj. Ifjbecomes zero, break the loop.
- Assign the cookie at index
- Return the difference between the maximum and minimum number of cookies assigned.
Time complexity: O(n log n) due to sorting Space complexity: O(1) as we only use a constant amount of space
Optimized Solutions
Java
public class AssignCookies {
public static int assignCookies(int[] cookies, int[] kids) {
Arrays.sort(cookies);
Arrays.sort(kids);
int i = 0, j = kids.length - 1;
int maxDiff = 0;
while (i < cookies.length && j >= 0) {
int cookie = cookies[i];
int kid = kids[j];
if (cookie > kid) {
return Math.abs(cookie - kid);
}
i++;
j--;
}
return maxDiff;
}
}