Problem Description
You are given an integer array prices representing the prices of various chocolates in a store. You are also given a single integer money, which represents your initial amount of money. You must buy exactly two chocolates in such a way that you still have some non-negative leftover money. You would like to minimize the sum of the prices of the two chocolates you buy. Return the amount of money you will have leftover after buying the two chocolates. If there is no way for you to buy two chocolates without ending up in debt, return money. Note that the leftover must be non-negative.
Key Insights
- You need to find two distinct prices from the array that, when summed, do not exceed
money. - The goal is to maximize the leftover money after purchasing the two chocolates.
- Sorting the prices can help in efficiently finding the best pair of chocolates to purchase.
Space and Time Complexity
Time Complexity: O(n^2) - Due to the nested loops to find all pairs of chocolates. Space Complexity: O(1) - No additional space is used other than a few variables.
Solution
To solve the problem, we can use a brute force approach by checking all possible pairs of chocolate prices. We will iterate through each pair of chocolates and calculate their total price. If the total price is less than or equal to money, we will compute the leftover money. We will keep track of the maximum leftover money found during our iterations. If no valid pairs are found, we will return the original money.