leetcode: Candy

There are N children standing in a line. Each child is assigned a rating value.

You are giving candies to these children subjected to the following requirements:

• Each child must have at least one candy.
• Children with a higher rating get more candies than their neighbors.

What is the minimum candies you must give?

题目源地址：https://oj.leetcode.com/problems/candy/

题目大概意思如下：给一群小孩子发糖，每个小孩子分配了一个值，对每个小孩子来说， 至少有一颗糖，并且如果他的值比他挨着的小孩子的值要高，他所分得的糖也要多，求所需要的最少糖的数量。

题目提示了用贪心算法。

思路如下：

（1）定义一个数组，大小和孩子数量一样， 初始值都是1(因为每个孩子至少有一颗糖)。

（2）从第二值开始到尾遍历， 如果比前一个值大， 数组对应的值加1。

（3）从尾到头再进行一次第二步的过程， 有一点需要注意， 因为第二步之后可能满足了条件， 所以加1之前判断下是否破坏了值大糖多的条件。

python代码如下：

class Solution:
    # @param ratings, a list of integer
    # @return an integer
    def candy(self, ratings):
        if ratings == None:
            return 0
        size = len(ratings)
        if size == 0:
            return 0
        if size == 1:
            return 1
        assign_count = [1] * size
        for i in range(1, size):
            if ratings[i] > ratings[i - 1]:
                assign_count[i] = assign_count[i-1] + 1
        for i in range(size-2, -1, -1):
            if ratings[i] > ratings[i+1] and \
            assign_count[i] <= assign_count[i+1]:
                assign_count[i] = assign_count[i+1] + 1
        return sum(assign_count)