#1011

Capacity To Ship Packages Within D Days

Medium
ArrayBinary SearchBinary SearchGreedy Algorithms
LeetCode ↗

Approaches

Brute ForceOptimal
Complexity Comparison
Brute ForceOptimal Solution
Time
O(n²)
O(n log m)
Space
O(1)
O(1)
💡

Intuition

Time O(n log m)Space O(1)

The optimal solution uses binary search to efficiently find the minimum ship capacity. It narrows down the possible capacities by checking if a certain capacity can ship all packages within the given days.

⚙️

Algorithm

3 steps
  1. 1Step 1: Set the lower bound as the maximum weight of a single package and the upper bound as the total weight of all packages.
  2. 2Step 2: Perform binary search: calculate the mid-point capacity and check if it can ship within the given days using the helper function.
  3. 3Step 3: If it can ship, update the upper bound; if not, update the lower bound. Repeat until bounds converge.
solution.py29 lines
1# Full working Python code
2
3def canShip(weights, capacity, days):
4    total_days = 1
5    current_weight = 0
6    for weight in weights:
7        current_weight += weight
8        if current_weight > capacity:
9            total_days += 1
10            current_weight = weight
11            if total_days > days:
12                return False
13    return True
14
15def shipWithinDays(weights, days):
16    left = max(weights)
17    right = sum(weights)
18    while left < right:
19        mid = (left + right) // 2
20        if canShip(weights, mid, days):
21            right = mid
22        else:
23            left = mid + 1
24    return left
25
26# Example usage
27weights = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
28days = 5
29print(shipWithinDays(weights, days))

Complexity note: The complexity is O(n log m) where n is the number of packages and m is the range of possible capacities (from max weight to total weight). The binary search reduces the number of checks significantly.

  • 1Binary search is a powerful technique for optimizing search problems, especially when the search space is continuous.
  • 2Understanding how to simulate the loading process is crucial to determining if a given capacity is feasible.

Solutions and explanations are original Tejav content. Problem titles © LeetCode — use the LeetCode button above for the full problem statement.