Number of Operations to Decrement Target to Zero - Google Top Interview Questions


Problem Statement :


You are given a list of positive integers nums and an integer target. 

Consider an operation where we remove a number v from either the front or the back of nums and decrement target by v.

Return the minimum number of operations required to decrement target to zero. If it's not possible, return -1.

Constraints

n ≤ 100,000 where n is the length of nums

Example 1

Input

nums = [3, 1, 1, 2, 5, 1, 1]

target = 7

Output

3

Explanation

We can remove 1, 1 and 5 from the back to decrement target to zero.



Example 2

Input

nums = [2, 4]

target = 7

Output

-1

Explanation

There's no way to decrement target = 7 to zero.



Solution :



title-img




                        Solution in C++ :

int solve(vector<int>& numbers, int target) {
    vector<int> prefix_sums = {0};
    partial_sum(numbers.begin(), numbers.end(), back_inserter(prefix_sums));

    int length = numbers.size();
    int shortest = length + 1;

    for (int left = 0; left <= length; ++left) {
        int target_for_right = prefix_sums[length] + prefix_sums[left] - target;
        auto it = lower_bound(prefix_sums.begin(), prefix_sums.end(), target_for_right);
        int right = distance(prefix_sums.begin(), it);
        bool match = prefix_sums[right] == target_for_right;

        if (match) {
            shortest = min(shortest, length - right + left);
        }
    }

    return shortest == length + 1 ? -1 : shortest;
}
                    


                        Solution in Java :

import java.util.*;

class Solution {
    public int solve(int[] nums, int target) {
        int n = nums.length;
        if (n == 0) {
            if (target == 0)
                return 0;
            else
                return -1;
        }
        if (target == 0)
            return 0;
        int sum = 0;
        for (int num : nums) sum += num;
        if (sum == target)
            return n;
        target = sum - target;
        HashMap<Integer, Integer> map = new HashMap<>();
        int t = 0;
        int ans = Integer.MAX_VALUE;
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
            t += nums[i];
            if (t == target)
                ans = Math.min(n - 1 - i, ans);
            if (map.containsKey(t - target))
                ans = Math.min(ans, n - (i - map.get(t - target)));
            map.put(t, i);
        }
        return ans == Integer.MAX_VALUE ? -1 : ans;
    }
}
                    


                        Solution in Python : 
                            
class Solution:
    def solve(self, nums, target):
        if target == 0:
            return 0
        psum = sum(nums)
        if psum < target:
            return -1
        ans = len(nums) + 1
        ssum = 0
        suffixcnt = 0
        for i in range(len(nums) - 1, -1, -1):
            psum -= nums[i]
            while psum + ssum < target:
                ssum += nums[-1 - suffixcnt]
                suffixcnt += 1
            if psum + ssum == target:
                ans = min(ans, i + suffixcnt)
        if ans > len(nums):
            ans = -1
        return ans
                    


View More Similar Problems

Tree: Height of a Binary Tree

The height of a binary tree is the number of edges between the tree's root and its furthest leaf. For example, the following binary tree is of height : image Function Description Complete the getHeight or height function in the editor. It must return the height of a binary tree as an integer. getHeight or height has the following parameter(s): root: a reference to the root of a binary

View Solution →

Tree : Top View

Given a pointer to the root of a binary tree, print the top view of the binary tree. The tree as seen from the top the nodes, is called the top view of the tree. For example : 1 \ 2 \ 5 / \ 3 6 \ 4 Top View : 1 -> 2 -> 5 -> 6 Complete the function topView and print the resulting values on a single line separated by space.

View Solution →

Tree: Level Order Traversal

Given a pointer to the root of a binary tree, you need to print the level order traversal of this tree. In level-order traversal, nodes are visited level by level from left to right. Complete the function levelOrder and print the values in a single line separated by a space. For example: 1 \ 2 \ 5 / \ 3 6 \ 4 F

View Solution →

Binary Search Tree : Insertion

You are given a pointer to the root of a binary search tree and values to be inserted into the tree. Insert the values into their appropriate position in the binary search tree and return the root of the updated binary tree. You just have to complete the function. Input Format You are given a function, Node * insert (Node * root ,int data) { } Constraints No. of nodes in the tree <

View Solution →

Tree: Huffman Decoding

Huffman coding assigns variable length codewords to fixed length input characters based on their frequencies. More frequent characters are assigned shorter codewords and less frequent characters are assigned longer codewords. All edges along the path to a character contain a code digit. If they are on the left side of the tree, they will be a 0 (zero). If on the right, they'll be a 1 (one). Only t

View Solution →

Binary Search Tree : Lowest Common Ancestor

You are given pointer to the root of the binary search tree and two values v1 and v2. You need to return the lowest common ancestor (LCA) of v1 and v2 in the binary search tree. In the diagram above, the lowest common ancestor of the nodes 4 and 6 is the node 3. Node 3 is the lowest node which has nodes and as descendants. Function Description Complete the function lca in the editor b

View Solution →