Leetcode: 621. Task Scheduler

Question:

Given a char array representing tasks CPU need to do. It contains capital letters A to Z where different letters represent different tasks. Tasks could be done without original order. Each task could be done in one interval. For each interval, CPU could finish one task or just be idle.

However, there is a non-negative cooling interval n that means between two same tasks, there must be at least n intervals that CPU are doing different tasks or just be idle.

You need to return the least number of intervals the CPU will take to finish all the given tasks.

Example:

Input: tasks = [“A”,“A”,“A”,“B”,“B”,“B”], n = 2
Output: 8
Explanation: A -> B -> idle -> A -> B -> idle -> A -> B.

Solution 1: Priority Queue

We add the frequency of each char into a max pq, then in poll n times. After that, we added the remained char back into the pq, start over to poll again.

class Solution {
    public int leastInterval(char[] tasks, int n) {
    	int[] map = new int[26];
    	for (char c : tasks) {
    		map[c - 'A']++;
    	}
    	Queue<Integer> queue = new PriorityQueue<>();
    	for (int fre : map) {
    		if (fre > 0)
    			queue.add(fre);
    	}
    	int time = 0;
    	while (!queue.isEmpty()) {
    		int i = 0;
    		while (i <= n) {
    			List<Integer> temp = new ArrayList<>();
    			if (!queue.isEmpty) {
    				if (queue.peek() > 1) 
    					temp.add(queue.poll()-1);
    				else
    					queue.poll();
    			}
    			time++;
    			if (queue.isEmpty() && temp.size() == 0) break;
    			i++;
    		}
    		for (int l : temp) {
    			queue.add(l);
    		}
    	}
    	return time;
    }
}

Solution 2:

class Solution {
    public int leastInterval(char[] tasks, int n) {
    	Arrays.sort(tasks);
        int max = 0, maxCount = 0;
        int[] counter = new int[26];
        for (char task : tasks) {
            counter[task - 'A']++;
            if (max == counter[task - 'A']) {
                maxCount++;
            } else if (max < counter[task - 'A']) {
                max = counter[task - 'A'];
                maxCount = 1;
            }
        }
        int partCount = max - 1;
        int partLength = n - (maxCount - 1);
        int emptySlots = partCount*partLength;
        int availableTasks = tasks.length - max*maxCount;
        int idles = Math.max(0, emptySlots - availableTasks);
        return tasks.length + idles;
    }
}