Syntax error Program to check whether first player can take more candies than other or not in Python

Program to check whether first player can take more candies than other or not in Python

Suppose we have a list of numbers called candies and two persons are racing to collect the most number of candies. Here the race is turn based, person 1 is starting first, and in each turn he can pick up candies from the front or from the back. We have to check whether person 1 can collect more candies than other or not.

So, if the input is like candies = [1, 4, 3, 8], then the output will be True, as person 1 can take 8 candies in the first round and regardless of whether second person picks 1 or 3, person 1 can win by taking any remaining candy.

To solve this, we will follow these steps −

  • N := size of candies

  • Define a function difference() . This will take left, right

  • if left is same as right, then

    • return candies[left]

  • return maximum of (candies[left] − difference(left + 1, right)) and (candies[right] − difference(left, right − 1))

  • from the main method do the following −

  • return true when difference(0, N − 1) > 0, otherwise false

Let us see the following implementation to get better understanding −

Example

 Live Demo

class Solution:
   def solve(self, candies):
      N = len(candies)
      def difference(left, right):
         nonlocal candies
         if left == right:
            return candies[left]
         return max(candies[left] − difference(left + 1, right), candies[right] − difference(left, right − 1))
      return difference(0, N − 1) > 0
ob = Solution()
candies = [1, 4, 3, 8]
print(ob.solve(candies))

Input

[1, 4, 3, 8]

Output

True
Updated on: 2020-12-26T10:43:07+05:30

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