Leetcode: Gas Station

There are N gas stations along a circular route, where the amount of gas at station i is gas[i].

You have a car with an unlimited gas tank and it costs cost[i] of gas to travel from station i to its next station (i+1). You begin the journey with an empty tank at one of the gas stations.

Return the starting gas station's index if you can travel around the circuit once, otherwise return -1.

Note:

The solution is guaranteed to be unique.

A O(n^2) time method is iterating over each gas station, at each gas station, check whether the net gas is always positive. A better O(n) solution is as follows. Calculate net gas starting at every station, and if it is negative, clear the net gas and start with the next station. Also sum all net gas at each station, if the value is position, there must be a solution to walk around the circle once, if not, return -1.

public class Solution {
    public int canCompleteCircuit(int[] gas, int[] cost) {
        if (gas == null || gas.length == 0 || cost == null || cost.length == 0 || gas.length != cost.length) {
            return -1;
        }
        
        int sum = 0;
        int total = 0;
        int start = 0;
        for (int i = 0; i < gas.length; i++) {
            int diff = gas[i] - cost[i];
            sum += diff;
            total += diff;
            if (sum < 0) {
                sum = 0;
                start = i + 1;
            }
        }

        
        return total < 0 ? -1 : start;
    }
}