4kyu Smallest possible sum

4kyu Smallest possible sum

题目背景：

Task
Given an array X of positive integers, its elements are to be transformed by running the following operation on them as many times as required:

if X[i] > X[j] then X[i] = X[i] - X[j]

When no more transformations are possible, return its sum (“smallest possible sum”).

Example
For instance, the successive transformation of the elements of input X = [6, 9, 21] is detailed below:

X_1 = [6, 9, 12] # -> X_1[2] = X[2] - X[1] = 21 - 9
X_2 = [6, 9, 6]  # -> X_2[2] = X_1[2] - X_1[0] = 12 - 6
X_3 = [6, 3, 6]  # -> X_3[1] = X_2[1] - X_2[0] = 9 - 6
X_4 = [6, 3, 3]  # -> X_4[2] = X_3[2] - X_3[1] = 6 - 3
X_5 = [3, 3, 3]  # -> X_5[1] = X_4[0] - X_4[1] = 6 - 3

题目分析：
本道题第一眼看下去就是很绕， 但是细细地思索下去会发现，既然我最终的目的是整个数组里面的每个值都是相等的，那么我可以每次只比较两个值，例如第一次比对 X[0] 和 X[1]，连续套用这个算法形式，把两个值最后变成一样的，即 X’[0] = X’[1]，再继续往后推进，比对 X’[1] 和 X[2]，使得 X"[1] = X’[2]，因为上一步中 X’[0] = X’[1]，所以 X’[0] 肯定可以和 X’[1] 进行同等的变换，即满足 X"[0] = X"[1] = X’[2]，大致思路就是不断地向数组尾部推进，直至推到数组尾部，题目解完，时间复杂度为 O(n)。同时需要注意到的是，题目存在一个trick，就是如果有一个元素是1的话，那么肯定数组最后会变为元素全为1的数组，考虑这一个因素进去后，可以进一步优化时间。

先附上比对两个值的算法：

unsigned long long step (unsigned long long tmp, unsigned long long start) {
    while ( tmp != start ) {
        if ( tmp > start ) {
            if ( tmp % start == 0 ) return start;
            tmp %= start;
        }
        else {
            if ( start % tmp == 0 ) return tmp;
            start %= tmp;
        }
    }
    return tmp;
}

AC代码：

#include <vector>

unsigned long long step (unsigned long long tmp, unsigned long long start) {
    while ( tmp != start ) {
        if ( tmp > start ) {
            if ( tmp % start == 0 ) return start;
            tmp %= start;
        }
        else {
            if ( start % tmp == 0 ) return tmp;
            start %= tmp;
        }
    }
    return tmp;
}

unsigned long long solution(const std::vector<unsigned long long>& arr){
    if ( arr.size() == 1) return arr[0];
    unsigned long long tmp;
    unsigned long long start = arr[0];
    for ( long long i = 1; i < arr.size(); i++ ) {
        tmp = arr[i];
        tmp = step(tmp, start);
        if ( tmp == 1 ) return arr.size();
        start = tmp;
    }
    return tmp * arr.size();
}