Problem:
Assume you are an awesome parent and want to give your children some cookies. But, you should give each child at most one cookie.
Each child i
has a greed factor g[i]
, which is the minimum size of a cookie that the child will be content with; and each cookie j
has a size s[j]
. If s[j] >= g[i]
, we can assign the cookie j
to the child i
, and the child i
will be content. Your goal is to maximize the number of your content children and output the maximum number.
Example 1:
Input: g = [1,2,3], s = [1,1] Output: 1 Explanation: You have 3 children and 2 cookies. The greed factors of 3 children are 1, 2, 3. And even though you have 2 cookies, since their size is both 1, you could only make the child whose greed factor is 1 content. You need to output 1.
Example 2:
Input: g = [1,2], s = [1,2,3] Output: 2 Explanation: You have 2 children and 3 cookies. The greed factors of 2 children are 1, 2. You have 3 cookies and their sizes are big enough to gratify all of the children, You need to output 2.
Constraints:
1 <= g.length <= 3 * 104
0 <= s.length <= 3 * 104
1 <= g[i], s[j] <= 231 - 1
Problem Analysis:
High-level strategy:
- Sort the lists of greed factors (
g
) and cookie sizes (s
) in ascending order. - Initialize pointers
i
andj
to iterate through the greed factors and cookie sizes, respectively. - Iterate through the lists while comparing greed factors and cookie sizes.
- If the current cookie size is sufficient to satisfy the current child, move to the next child and the next cookie.
- Increment the count of satisfied children.
- Finally, return the count of satisfied children.
Complexity:
- Time Complexity: O(max(N log N, M log M)), where N is the length of
g
and M is the length ofs
. This is due to the sorting of both lists. - Space Complexity: O(1). The algorithm uses a constant amount of extra space.
Solutions:
class Solution:
def findContentChildren(self, g: List[int], s: List[int]) -> int:
g.sort()
s.sort()
res = 0
i, j = 0, 0
while i < len(g) and j < len(s):
# If the current cookie size is greater than or equal to the current child's greed factor
# It means the child can be satisfied, move to the next child and next cookie
if s[j] >= g[i]:
res += 1
i += 1
j += 1
return res