leetcode #134. Gas Station

There are N gas stations along a circular route, where the amount of gas at station i is gas[i].

You have a car with an unlimited gas tank and it costs cost[i] of gas to travel from station i to its next station (i+1). You begin the journey with an empty tank at one of the gas stations.

Return the starting gas station’s index if you can travel around the circuit once in the clockwise direction, otherwise return -1.

Note:

If there exists a solution, it is guaranteed to be unique.
Both input arrays are non-empty and have the same length.
Each element in the input arrays is a non-negative integer.
Example 1:

Input:
gas = [1,2,3,4,5]
cost = [3,4,5,1,2]

Output: 3

Explanation:
Start at station 3 (index 3) and fill up with 4 unit of gas. Your tank = 0 + 4 = 4
Travel to station 4. Your tank = 4 - 1 + 5 = 8
Travel to station 0. Your tank = 8 - 2 + 1 = 7
Travel to station 1. Your tank = 7 - 3 + 2 = 6
Travel to station 2. Your tank = 6 - 4 + 3 = 5
Travel to station 3. The cost is 5. Your gas is just enough to travel back to station 3.
Therefore, return 3 as the starting index.
Example 2:

Input:
gas = [2,3,4]
cost = [3,4,3]

Output: -1

Explanation:
You can’t start at station 0 or 1, as there is not enough gas to travel to the next station.
Let’s start at station 2 and fill up with 4 unit of gas. Your tank = 0 + 4 = 4
Travel to station 0. Your tank = 4 - 3 + 2 = 3
Travel to station 1. Your tank = 3 - 3 + 3 = 3
You cannot travel back to station 2, as it requires 4 unit of gas but you only have 3.
Therefore, you can’t travel around the circuit once no matter where you start.

思路借鉴（网友 https://blog.csdn.net/qq508618087/article/details/50990076）: 累加在每个位置的left += gas[i] - cost[i], 就是在每个位置剩余的油量, 如果left一直大于0, 就可以一直走下取. 如果left小于0了, 那么就从下一个位置重新开始计数, 并且将之前欠下的多少记录下来, 如果最终遍历完数组剩下的燃料足以弥补之前不够的, 那么就可以到达, 并返回最后一次开始的位置.否则就返回-1.

证明这种方法的正确性:

1. 如果从头开始, 每次累计剩下的油量都为整数, 那么没有问题, 他可以从头开到结束.

2. 如果到中间的某个位置, 剩余的油量为负了, 那么说明之前累积剩下的油量不够从这一站到下一站了. 那么就从下一站从新开始计数. 为什么是下一站, 而不是之前的某站呢? 因为第一站剩余的油量肯定是大于等于0的, 然而到当前一站油量变负了, 说明从第一站之后开始的话到当前油量只会更少而不会增加. 也就是说从第一站之后, 当前站之前的某站出发到当前站剩余的油量是不可能大于0的. 所以只能从下一站重新出发开始计算从下一站开始剩余的油量, 并且把之前欠下的油量也累加起来, 看到最后剩余的油量是不是大于欠下的油量.
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   版权声明：本文为CSDN博主「小榕流光」的原创文章，遵循 CC 4.0 BY-SA 版权协议，转载请附上原文出处链接及本声明。
   原文链接：https://blog.csdn.net/qq508618087/article/details/50990076

本题非常巧妙，非常好的而且清晰的解法，具体标注在代码中

class Solution {
    public int canCompleteCircuit(int[] gas, int[] cost) {
        
        int start =0;//起始位置， 如果油箱<0则从下一个位置开始，因为前面从0
        //开始 到此变为负数只会减少 而不会增多
        
        int tank = 0;//邮箱
        int lack =0; // 如果tank 《0 差的油量
        for(int i = 0; i< gas.length;i++){
            tank += gas[i] - cost[i];
             if(tank <0){
                 start = i+1;
                 lack += tank; //因为只有一次循环， 每次不通过 则把差的油总和加在一起
                 tank = 0;
                     
             }
        }
        
        return tank+lack >= 0? start:-1;
    }
}```