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How to Solve Minimum Number of Refueling Stops Problem
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LeetCode ProblemMinimum Number of Refueling Stops
A car travels from a starting position to a destination which is target miles east of the starting position. There are gas stations along the way. The gas stations are represented as an array stations where stations[i] = [positioni, fueli] indicates that the ith gas station is positioni miles east of the starting position and has fueli liters of gas. The car starts with an infinite tank of gas, which initially has startFuel liters of fuel in it. It uses one liter of gas per one mile that it drives. When the car reaches a gas station, it may stop and refuel, transferring all the gas from the station into the car. Return the minimum number of refueling stops the car must make in order to reach its destination. If it cannot reach the destination, return -1. Note that if the car reaches a gas station with 0 fuel left, the car can still refuel there. If the car reaches the destination with 0 fuel left, it is still considered to have arrived.
ArrayDynamic ProgrammingGreedyHeap (Priority Queue)
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Problem Breakdown
Understanding the Minimum Number of Refueling Stops Problem
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Problem Statement
A car travels from a starting position to a destination which is target miles east of the starting position. There are gas stations along the way. The gas stations are represented as an array stations where stations[i] = [positioni, fueli] indicates that the ith gas station is positioni miles east of the starting position and has fueli liters of gas. The car starts with an infinite tank of gas, which initially has startFuel liters of fuel in it. It uses one liter of gas per one mile that it drives. When the car reaches a gas station, it may stop and refuel, transferring all the gas from the station into the car. Return the minimum number of refueling stops the car must make in order to reach its destination. If it cannot reach the destination, return -1. Note that if the car reaches a gas station with 0 fuel left, the car can still refuel there. If the car reaches the destination with 0 fuel left, it is still considered to have arrived.
HardProblem #871
LeetCodeMinimum Number of Refueling Stops
Related Topics
ArrayDynamic ProgrammingGreedyHeap (Priority Queue)
How Phantom Code Helps
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Examples
# Example 1
Input
target = 1, startFuel = 1, stations = []
Output
0
# Example 2
Input
target = 100, startFuel = 1, stations = [[10,100]]
Output
-1
# Example 3
Input
target = 100, startFuel = 10, stations = [[10,60],[20,30],[30,30],[60,40]]
Output
2
Constraints
1 <= target, startFuel <= 109
0 <= stations.length <= 500
1 <= positioni < positioni+1 < target
1 <= fueli < 109
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Solve Minimum Number of Refueling Stops — A car travels from a starting position to a destination which is target miles ea...
Here's the optimal approach using Array:
def solve(input):
# Optimal O(n) solution
return result
Time: O(n) | Space: O(n)
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Phantom Code catches common mistakes like off-by-one errors, missing edge cases, incorrect base conditions, and suboptimal approaches. It provides clean, well-structured code that handles all edge cases.
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