Maximum Tastiness of Candy Basket — LeetCode 2517 Python Solution

The problem

You are given an array of positive integers price where price[i] denotes the price of the ith candy and a positive integer k. The store sells baskets of k distinct candies.

Example

Input

price = [13,5,1,8,21,2], k = 3

Output

8

Explanation

Choose the candies with the prices [13,5,21].

Python solution

class Solution:
    def maximumTastiness(self, price: List[int], k: int) -> int:
        def check(x: int) -> bool:
            cnt, pre = 0, -x
            for cur in price:
                if cur - pre >= x:
                    pre = cur
                    cnt += 1
            return cnt >= k

        price.sort()
        l, r = 0, price[-1] - price[0]
        while l < r:
            mid = (l + r + 1) >> 1
            if check(mid):
                l = mid
            else:
                r = mid - 1
        return l

Complexity

Pattern: Monotonic Stack

Answer "what is the next greater element" for every position in one pass. LeetCode 2517. Maximum Tastiness of Candy Basket is filed here because the reference solution below belongs to the algorithm family this hub collects, even though its LeetCode tags point elsewhere.

The monotonic stack guide has the Python template for the pattern and the 225 LeetCode problems that use it.

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