#1547
Minimum Cost to Cut a Stick
expert · 1120 · lc hard +32 · verified · 62.8% accepted · 4,814 likes · top 64%
Description
A wooden stick of length n (labeled 0 to n) must be cut at each position listed in array cuts. You may perform the cuts in any order; the cost of each cut equals the current length of the stick being cut. Return the minimum possible total cutting cost.
Example 1:
Input: n = 7, cuts = [1,3,4,5]
Output: 16
Explanation: Using cuts order = [1, 3, 4, 5] as in the input leads to the following scenario:
Example 2:
The first cut is done to a rod of length 7 so the cost is 7. The second cut is done to a rod of length 6 (i.e. the second part of the first cut), the third is done to a rod of length 4 and the last cut is to a rod of length 3. The total cost is 7 + 6 + 4 + 3 = 20.
Rearranging the cuts to be [3, 5, 1, 4] for example will lead to a scenario with total cost = 16 (as shown in the example photo 7 + 4 + 3 + 2 = 16).
Example 3:
Input: n = 9, cuts = [5,6,1,4,2]
Output: 22
Explanation: If you try the given cuts ordering the cost will be 25.
There are much ordering with total cost <= 25, for example, the order [4, 6, 5, 2, 1] has total cost = 22 which is the minimum possible.
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