Last Stone Weight

Problem

You are given an array of integers stones where stones[i] is the weight of the ith stone.

We are playing a game with the stones. On each turn, we choose the heaviest two stones and smash them together. Suppose the heaviest two stones have weights x and y with x <= y. The result of this smash is:

• If x == y, both stones are destroyed, and
• If x != y, the stone of weight x is destroyed, and the stone of weight y has new weight y - x.

At the end of the game, there is at most one stone left.

Return the weight of the last remaining stone. If there are no stones left, return 0.

Example 1:

Input: stones = [2,7,4,1,8,1]
Output: 1
Explanation: 
We combine 7 and 8 to get 1 so the array converts to [2,4,1,1,1] then,
we combine 2 and 4 to get 2 so the array converts to [2,1,1,1] then,
we combine 2 and 1 to get 1 so the array converts to [1,1,1] then,
we combine 1 and 1 to get 0 so the array converts to [1] then that's the value of the last stone.

Example 2:

Input: stones = [1]
Output: 1

Intuition

The problem involves simulating the process of smashing stones together until there is at most one stone left. The simulation can be efficiently performed using a min-heap, where we repeatedly remove the two heaviest stones, perform the smashing operation, and insert the result back into the heap.

Approach

Initialization:

The array stones is negated to create a max-heap effect, as Python's heapq module provides a min-heap implementation.
The negated stones array is heapified using heapq.heapify to maintain the max-heap property.
Simulation:

While the number of stones in the heap is greater than 1:
The two heaviest stones are removed from the heap using heapq.heappop.
If the two stones have different weights, a new stone is created with weight abs(second - first) and inserted back into the heap using heapq.heappush.
Result:

After the simulation, there is at most one stone left in the heap.
If there is a stone left, its weight is returned as the result. Otherwise, 0 is returned.

Complexity

• Time complexity:

The time complexity is O(n log n), where n is the number of stones. Each heap operation (pop or push) takes O(log n) time, and the simulation involves n - 1 such operations.

• Space complexity:

The space complexity is O(n) for the heap.

Code

class Solution:
    def lastStoneWeight(self, stones: List[int]) -> int:
        stones = [-s for s in stones]
        heapq.heapify(stones)

        while len(stones) > 1:
            first = heapq.heappop(stones)
            second = heapq.heappop(stones)
            if second > first:
                heapq.heappush(stones, first - second)
        
        stones.append(0)
        return abs(stones[0])