LeetCode 1431: Kids With the Greatest Number of Candies

Meta Data

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Difficulty: easy First Attempt: 2025-03-18

• Submissions: Wrong Answer → Accepted ×2

Approach

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Give all the extra candies to one kid; they have the most if they reach at least the original maximum (Array Template 3). Several kids can tie for the most, so a tie counts.

My Attempts

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Attempt 1 used >, so ties did not count. For candies = [3], extraCandies = 0, the only kid already has the most, so the answer is [True]; it returned [False]. Changing to >= passed; the third submission moved max(candies) out of the loop.

Solution

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class Solution:
    def kidsWithCandies(self, candies: List[int], extraCandies: int) -> List[bool]:
        top = max(candies)
        return [c + extraCandies >= top for c in candies]

Complexity

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Time O(n), space O(n) for the output.

Mistakes to Avoid

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• Use >=; a tie counts as the most.
• Compute the maximum once instead of inside the comprehension (that would be O(n²)).

Interview Explanation

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I compute the maximum once; each kid with the extra candies is True when they are no less than it, ties included. Time O(n).