Greedy-Algorithm

Sample Problem

You are given two integer arrays:

• greeds, where greeds[i] represents the minimum size of a cookie that a child needs to to be satisfied.
• cookies, where cookies[j] represents the size of a cookie.

Assign cookies such that as many children as possible are satisfied. Each child can receive at most one cookie, and each cookie can be given to only one child.

A Greedy Algorithm

def num_satisfied_children(greeds: List[int], cookies: List[int]) -> int:
  greeds.sort()
  cookies.sort()

  count = 0
  g_idx, c_idx = 0, 0
  while g_idx < len(greeds) and c_idx < len(cookies):
    if cookies[c_idx] >= greeds[g_idx]:
      count += 1
      g_idx += 1

    c_idx += 1

  return count

Problem Statement

There are \(L\) possible land rides and \(W\) possible water rides, with \(1 \le L, W \le 5 \times 10^4\). A tourist must experience exactly one ride from each category, in either order. A ride may be started at its opening time or any later moment. Immediately after finishing one ride, the tourist may board the other if it’s already open or wait until it opens. Return the earliest possible time at which the tourist can finish both rides.