How to Solve Minimum Number of Food Buckets to Feed the Hamsters Problem
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Minimum Number of Food Buckets to Feed the Hamsters
You are given a 0-indexed string hamsters where hamsters[i] is either: 'H' indicating that there is a hamster at index i, or '.' indicating that index i is empty. You will add some number of food buck...
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Problem Statement
You are given a 0-indexed string hamsters where hamsters[i] is either: 'H' indicating that there is a hamster at index i, or '.' indicating that index i is empty. You will add some number of food buckets at the empty indices in order to feed the hamsters. A hamster can be fed if there is at least one food bucket to its left or to its right. More formally, a hamster at index i can be fed if you place a food bucket at index i - 1 and/or at index i + 1. Return the minimum number of food buckets you should place at empty indices to feed all the hamsters or -1 if it is impossible to feed all of them.
Minimum Number of Food Buckets to Feed the Hamsters
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Examples
hamsters = "H..H"
2
We place two food buckets at indices 1 and 2. It can be shown that if we place only one food bucket, one of the hamsters will not be fed.
hamsters = ".H.H."
1
We place one food bucket at index 2.
hamsters = ".HHH."
-1
If we place a food bucket at every empty index as shown, the hamster at index 2 will not be able to eat.
Constraints
1 <= hamsters.length <= 105
hamsters[i] is either'H' or '.'.
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