1478. Allocate Mailboxes
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Given the array houses where houses[i] is the location of the ith house along a street and an integer k, allocate k mailboxes in the street.
Return the minimum total distance between each house and its nearest mailbox.
The test cases are generated so that the answer fits in a 32-bit integer.
Example 1:
Input: houses = [1,4,8,10,20], k = 3 Output: 5 Explanation: Allocate mailboxes in position 3, 9 and 20. Minimum total distance from each houses to nearest mailboxes is |3-1| + |4-3| + |9-8| + |10-9| + |20-20| = 5
Example 2:
Input: houses = [2,3,5,12,18], k = 2 Output: 9 Explanation: Allocate mailboxes in position 3 and 14. Minimum total distance from each houses to nearest mailboxes is |2-3| + |3-3| + |5-3| + |12-14| + |18-14| = 9.
Constraints:
1 <= k <= houses.length <= 1001 <= houses[i] <= 104- All the integers of
housesare unique.
Hints
Hint 1
If k =1, the minimum distance is obtained allocating the mailbox in the median of the array houses.
Hint 2
Generalize this idea, using dynamic programming allocating k mailboxes.