#2790

Maximum Number of Groups With Increasing Length

Hard
ArrayMathBinary SearchGreedySortingGreedySorting
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Approaches

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

Intuition

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

The optimal approach involves sorting the usage limits and using a greedy strategy to maximize the number of groups. By sorting, we can efficiently allocate the numbers to groups while ensuring the increasing length condition is satisfied.

⚙️

Algorithm

4 steps
  1. 1Step 1: Sort the usageLimits array in non-decreasing order.
  2. 2Step 2: Initialize a counter for groups and a variable to track the current group length.
  3. 3Step 3: Iterate through the sorted usageLimits, trying to form groups of increasing lengths.
  4. 4Step 4: For each group, check if we can use the numbers without exceeding their limits, and update the usage count accordingly.
solution.py15 lines
1# Full working Python code
2usageLimits = [1, 2, 5]
3
4def maxGroups(usageLimits):
5    usageLimits.sort()
6    groups = 0
7    currentLength = 1
8
9    for usage in usageLimits:
10        if usage >= currentLength:
11            groups += 1
12            currentLength += 1
13    return groups
14
15print(maxGroups(usageLimits))

Complexity note: The time complexity is O(n log n) due to the sorting step, while the space complexity is O(1) as we only use a few additional variables.

  • 1Sorting the usage limits allows for a more efficient allocation of numbers to groups.
  • 2The greedy approach of forming groups based on the current length ensures that we maximize the number of groups.

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