Problem statement

Given a triangle array, return the minimum path sum from top to bottom.

For each step, you may move to an adjacent number of the row below. More formally, if you are on index i on the current row, you may move to either index i or index i + 1 on the next row.

Example 1

Input: triangle = [[2],[3,4],[6,5,7],[4,1,8,3]]
Output: 11
Explanation: The triangle looks like:
   2
  3 4
 6 5 7
4 1 8 3
The minimum path sum from top to bottom is 2 + 3 + 5 + 1 = 11 (underlined above).

Example 2

Input: triangle = [[-10]]
Output: -10

Constraints

• 1 <= triangle.length <= 200.

• triangle[0].length == 1.

• triangle[i].length == triangle[i - 1].length + 1.

• -10^4 <= triangle[i][j] <= 10^4.

Follow up: Could you do this using only O(n) extra space, where n is the total number of rows in the triangle?

Solution 1: Store all minimum paths

You can store all minimum paths at every position (i,j) so you can compute the next ones with this relationship.

minTotal[i][j] = triangle[i][j] + min(minTotal[i - 1][j - 1], minTotal[i - 1][j]);

Code

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <algorithm>
using namespace std;
int minimumTotal(vector<vector<int>>& triangle) {
    vector<vector<int>> minTotal(triangle.size());
    minTotal[0] = triangle[0];
    for (int i = 1; i < triangle.size(); i++) {
        const int N = triangle[i].size();
        minTotal[i].resize(N);
        for (int j = 0; j < N; j++) {
            if (j == 0) {
                minTotal[i][j] = triangle[i][j] + minTotal[i - 1][j];
            } else if (j == N - 1) {
                minTotal[i][j] = triangle[i][j] + minTotal[i - 1][j - 1];
            } else {
                minTotal[i][j] = triangle[i][j] + min(minTotal[i - 1][j - 1], minTotal[i - 1][j]);
            }
        }
    }
    return *min_element(minTotal[triangle.size() - 1].begin(), minTotal[triangle.size() - 1].end());
}
int main() {
    vector<vector<int>> triangle{{2},{3,4},{6,5,7},{4,1,8,3}};
    cout << minimumTotal(triangle) << endl;
    triangle = {{-10}};
    cout << minimumTotal(triangle) << endl;
}

Output:
11
-10

Code explanation

This solution finds the minimum path sum from the top to the bottom of a triangle, represented as a vector of vectors. It uses dynamic programming to calculate the minimum path sum efficiently.

The algorithm initializes a minTotal vector of vectors to store the minimum path sum for each element in the triangle. It starts by setting the first row of minTotal to be the same as the first row of the triangle.

Then, it iterates through the rows of the triangle starting from the second row. For each element in the current row, it calculates the minimum path sum by considering the two possible paths from the previous row that lead to that element. It takes the minimum of the two paths and adds the current element's value. This way, it accumulates the minimum path sum efficiently.

The algorithm continues this process until it reaches the last row of the triangle. Finally, it returns the minimum element from the last row of minTotal, which represents the minimum path sum from top to bottom.

Complexity

• Runtime: O(n*n/2), where n = triangle.length.

• Extra space: O(n*n/2).

Solution 2: Store only the minimum paths of each row

You do not need to store all paths for all rows. The computation of the next row only depends on its previous one.

Code

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <algorithm>
using namespace std;
int minimumTotal(vector<vector<int>>& triangle) {
    vector<int> minTotal(triangle.size());
    minTotal[0] = triangle[0][0];
    for (int i = 1; i < triangle.size(); i++) {
        minTotal[i] = triangle[i][i] + minTotal[i - 1];
        for (int j = i - 1; j > 0; j--) {
            minTotal[j] = triangle[i][j] + min(minTotal[j - 1], minTotal[j]);
        }
        minTotal[0] = triangle[i][0] + minTotal[0];
    }
    return *min_element(minTotal.begin(), minTotal.end());
}
int main() {
    vector<vector<int>> triangle{{2},{3,4},{6,5,7},{4,1,8,3}};
    cout << minimumTotal(triangle) << endl;
    triangle = {{-10}};
    cout << minimumTotal(triangle) << endl;
}

Output:
11
-10

In this solution, vector minTotal stores only the minimum path sums for each row of the triangle. It starts by setting the first element of minTotal to the value of the top element of the triangle.

Complexity

• Runtime: O(n*n/2), where n = triangle.length.

• Extra space: O(n).

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