Last Stone Weight II

arraydynamic programming

Problem Statement

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

We are playing a game with the stones. On each turn, we choose any two stones and smash them together. Suppose the 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 smallest possible weight of the left stone . If there are no stones left, return 0 .

Examples

Example 1

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

Example 2

Input: stones = [31,26,33,21,40]
Output: 5

Constraints

1 <= stones.length <= 30

1 <= stones[i] <= 100

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Medium

Difficulty

Topic Info

ModuleDSA

CategoryArray

Sub-topicDynamic Programming