1823. Find the Winner of the Circular Game

The description of the problem

There are n friends that are playing a game. The friends are sitting in a circle and are numbered from 1 to n in clockwise order. More formally, moving clockwise from the ith friend brings you to the (i+1)th friend for 1 <= i < n, and moving clockwise from the nth friend brings you to the 1st friend.

The rules of the game are as follows:

Start at the 1st friend.
Count the next k friends in the clockwise direction including the friend you started at. The counting wraps around the circle and may count some friends more than once.
The last friend you counted leaves the circle and loses the game.
If there is still more than one friend in the circle, go back to step 2 starting from the friend immediately clockwise of the friend who just lost and repeat.
Else, the last friend in the circle wins the game.
Given the number of friends, n, and an integer k, return the winner of the game.

来源：力扣（LeetCode）
链接：https://leetcode-cn.com/problems/find-the-winner-of-the-circular-game

chinese version

Input: n = 5, k = 2
Output: 3
Explanation: Here are the steps of the game:
1) Start at friend 1.
2) Count 2 friends clockwise, which are friends 1 and 2.
3) Friend 2 leaves the circle. Next start is friend 3.
4) Count 2 friends clockwise, which are friends 3 and 4.
5) Friend 4 leaves the circle. Next start is friend 5.
6) Count 2 friends clockwise, which are friends 5 and 1.
7) Friend 1 leaves the circle. Next start is friend 3.
8) Count 2 friends clockwise, which are friends 3 and 5.
9) Friend 5 leaves the circle. Only friend 3 is left, so they are the winner.

来源：力扣（LeetCode）
链接：https://leetcode-cn.com/problems/find-the-winner-of-the-circular-game

The intuition for solution 1

simulate the game process to find survival.

The corresponding codes:

#include <iostream>
#include <queue>
class Solution {
public:
    int findTheWinner(int n, int k) {
        std::queue<int> q;
        for (int i = 1; i <= n; i++) {
            q.push(i);
        }
        while(q.size() > 1) {
            for (int i = 0; i < k -1; i++) {
                q.push(q.front());
                q.pop();
            }
            q.pop();
        }
        return q.front();
    }
};
int main() 
{
    Solution s;
    int n = 5;
    int k = 2;
    std::cout << "The winner is " << s.findTheWinner(n, k) << std::endl;
}

The results for above codes :

The winner is 3

The recursive version

There is an important notation that you need to know. According to the above transformation, we could get the, the logical first gamers will be the winner for the next recursive iteration.

We just got index 1 recursive equation:
Josephus (n, k) = (Josephus (n-1, k) + k -1) % n + 1;
because we just use the seventh position as the example to prove the above equation is right.
Josephus (1, k) = 1;

The codes like following

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>

class Solution {
public:
    int findTheWinner(int n, int k) {
        if (n == 1) return 1;
        return (findTheWinner(n - 1, k) + k - 1 ) % n + 1;
    }
};

int main() 
{
    Solution s;
    std::cout << "The winner is: " << s.findTheWinner(3, 2) << std::endl;
    return 0;
}

The corresponding results:

result: 3