#3375

Minimum Operations to Make Array Values Equal to K

easy · 73.3% accepted · 406 likes · top 83%

array · hash table

Description

You are given an integer array nums and an integer k.

An integer h is called valid if all values in the array that are strictly greater than h are identical.

For example, if nums = [10, 8, 10, 8], a valid integer is h = 9 because all nums[i] > 9 are equal to 10, but 5 is not a valid integer.

You are allowed to perform the following operation on nums:

- Select an integer h that is valid for the current values in nums.

- For each index i where nums[i] > h, set nums[i] to h.

Return the minimum number of operations required to make every element in nums equal to k. If it is impossible to make all elements equal to k, return -1.

Solution