Program to find maximum number of K-sized groups with distinct type items are possible in Python

Suppose we have a list of numbers called counts where counts[i] represents the number of items are of type i. We also have another value k. We have to find the maximum number of groups of size k we can find, such that each group must have items of distinct types.

So, if the input is like counts = [2, 3, 5, 3] k = 2, then the output will be 6, because let four types of items are represented by a, b, c, d respectively. We can have the following groups of k = 2, where all elements are of distinct types: [(c, a), (b, a), (c, b), (c, b), (d, a), (d, a)].

To solve this, we will follow these steps −

• Define a function possible(). This will take counts, groups, k
• required := groups * k
• for i in range 0 to size of counts, do
  • temp := minimum of counts[i], groups and required
  • required := required - temp
  • if required is same as 0, then
    • return True
• return False
• Define a function solve() . This will take counts, k
• res := 0
• l := 0
• r := sum of all elements present in counts
• while l <= r, do
  • m := l + floor of (r - l) / 2
  • if possible(counts, m, k) is true, then
    • l := m + 1
    • res := maximum of res and m
  • otherwise,
    • r := m - 1
• return res

Example

Let us see the following implementation to get better understanding −

def possible(counts, groups, k):
   required = groups * k
   for i in range(len(counts)):
      temp = min(counts[i], groups, required)
      required -= temp
      if required == 0:
         return True
   return False

def solve(counts, k):
   res = 0
   l = 0
   r = sum(counts)
   while l <= r:
      m = l + (r - l) // 2
      if possible(counts, m, k):
         l = m + 1
         res = max(res, m)
      else:
         r = m - 1
   return res

counts = [2, 3, 5, 3]
k = 2
print(solve(counts, k))

Input

[2, 3, 5, 3], 2

Output

6