#3542

Minimum Operations to Convert All Elements to Zero

Medium
ArrayHash TableStackGreedyMonotonic StackHash MapArray
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Approaches

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

Intuition

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

By processing values in sorted order and identifying contiguous segments, we can minimize operations effectively.

⚙️

Algorithm

3 steps
  1. 1Step 1: Sort the unique values in the array, excluding 0.
  2. 2Step 2: For each unique value, find its contiguous segments in the original array.
  3. 3Step 3: Count the segments for each unique value to determine operations.
solution.py15 lines
1def minOperations(nums):
2    from collections import defaultdict
3    segments = defaultdict(int)
4    nums = sorted(set(nums))
5    for num in nums:
6        if num == 0: continue
7        in_segment = False
8        for n in nums:
9            if n == num:
10                if not in_segment:
11                    segments[num] += 1
12                    in_segment = True
13            else:
14                in_segment = False
15    return sum(segments.values())

Complexity note: Sorting the unique values takes O(n log n), and counting segments is O(n).

  • 1Identify unique values to minimize operations.
  • 2Contiguous segments can be zeroed in one operation.

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