- Difficulty: Hard
- Tags: LeetCode, Hard, Array, Dynamic Programming, Prefix Sum, leetcode-1000, O(n^3 / k), O(n^2)
Problem
There are n
piles of stones
arranged in a row. The ith
pile has stones[i]
stones.
A move consists of merging exactly k
consecutive piles into one pile, and the cost of this move is equal to the total number of stones in these k
piles.
Return the minimum cost to merge all piles of stones into one pile. If it is impossible, return -1
.
Example 1:
Input: stones = [3,2,4,1], k = 2 Output: 20 Explanation: We start with [3, 2, 4, 1]. We merge [3, 2] for a cost of 5, and we are left with [5, 4, 1]. We merge [4, 1] for a cost of 5, and we are left with [5, 5]. We merge [5, 5] for a cost of 10, and we are left with [10]. The total cost was 20, and this is the minimum possible.
Example 2:
Input: stones = [3,2,4,1], k = 3 Output: -1 Explanation: After any merge operation, there are 2 piles left, and we can't merge anymore. So the task is impossible.
Example 3:
Input: stones = [3,5,1,2,6], k = 3 Output: 25 Explanation: We start with [3, 5, 1, 2, 6]. We merge [5, 1, 2] for a cost of 8, and we are left with [3, 8, 6]. We merge [3, 8, 6] for a cost of 17, and we are left with [17]. The total cost was 25, and this is the minimum possible.
Constraints:
n == stones.length
1 <= n <= 30
1 <= stones[i] <= 100
2 <= k <= 30