1046. Last Stone Weight (Easy)

We have a collection of stones, each stone has a positive integer weight.

Each turn, we choose the two heaviest 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 totally destroyed;
• If x != y, the stone of weight x is totally destroyed, and the stone of weight y has new weight y-x.

At the end, there is at most 1 stone left.  Return the weight of this stone (or 0 if there are no stones left.)

 

Example 1:

Input: [2,7,4,1,8,1]
Output: 1
Explanation: 
We combine 7 and 8 to get 1 so the array converts to [2,4,1,1,1] then,
we combine 2 and 4 to get 2 so the array converts to [2,1,1,1] then,
we combine 2 and 1 to get 1 so the array converts to [1,1,1] then,
we combine 1 and 1 to get 0 so the array converts to [1] then that's the value of last stone.

 

Note:

1. 1 <= stones.length <= 30
2. 1 <= stones[i] <= 1000

Related Topics:
Heap, Greedy

Solution 1. Max-root Heap

// OJ: https://leetcode.com/problems/last-stone-weight/
// Author: github.com/lzl124631x
// Time: O(NlogN)
// Space: O(N)
class Solution {
public:
    int lastStoneWeight(vector<int>& A) {
        priority_queue<int> pq(begin(A), end(A));
        while (pq.size() > 1) {
            int a = pq.top();
            pq.pop();
            int b = pq.top();
            pq.pop();
            pq.push(a - b);
        }
        return pq.top();
    }
};