Candy

There are N children standing in a line. Each child is assigned a rating value.

You are giving candies to these children subjected to the following requirements:

• Each child must have at least one candy.
• Children with a higher rating get more candies than their neighbors.

What is the minimum candies you must give?

class Solution {
public:
    int candy(vector<int> &ratings) {
        // Note: The Solution object is instantiated only once and is reused by each test case.
        int n = ratings.size();
        if(n == 0 || n == 1) return n;

        int sum = 0,candies[n];
        for(int i = 0;i<n;i++) candies[i] = 1;
        
        for(int k = 1,i = 1;i<n;i++)
        {
            if(ratings[i] > ratings[i-1]){;
                candies[i] = max(++k,candies[i]);
            }else k = 1;
        }
        
        for(int k = 1,i = n-1;i >= 1;i--)
        {
            if(ratings[i] < ratings[i-1]){
                 candies[i-1] = max(++k,candies[i-1]);
            }else k = 1;
        }
        
        for(int i = 0;i<ratings.size();i++)
        {
            sum += candies[i];
        }
        
        return sum;
    }
};

132 ms