390. Elimination Game

390. Elimination Game

There is a list of sorted integers from 1 to n. Starting from left to right, remove the first number and every other number afterward until you reach the end of the list.

Repeat the previous step again, but this time from right to left, remove the right most number and every other number from the remaining numbers.

We keep repeating the steps again, alternating left to right and right to left, until a single number remains.

Find the last number that remains starting with a list of length n.

Example:

Input:
n = 9,
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
2 4 6 8
2 6
6

Output:
6

思路：首先，假设n是奇数，n与n-1的结果一样，因为n必定在第一次遍历时就被消掉。在观察，原始数据1~n是公差为1的等差数列，消除一次后，公差为-2，再下一次是4。然后，再看起始与终止数字，每一次消去后，都把数列的个数变成偶数个，此时s=e,即原来的结尾变成起始，e=s+d，结尾变成起始加d。

class Solution {
public:
    int lastRemaining(int n) {
       int s=1,e=n,d=1;
       while(s!=e)
       {
           int num=(e-s)/d+1;
           if(num&1)
            e-=d;
            int t=s;
            s=e;
            e=t+d;
           d=d*(-2);
       }
       return s;
    }
};