Problem Description
There are n persons on a social media website. You are given an integer array ages where ages[i] is the age of the ith person. A Person x will not send a friend request to a person y (x != y) if any of the following conditions is true:
- age[y] <= 0.5 * age[x] + 7
- age[y] > age[x]
- age[y] > 100 && age[x] < 100
Otherwise, x will send a friend request to y. Return the total number of friend requests made.
Key Insights
- A friend request is conditional based on age comparisons.
- The problem can be solved using a nested loop to compare each person with every other person while adhering to the given rules.
- Efficient counting can be achieved by leveraging properties of age ranges and constraints.
Space and Time Complexity
Time Complexity: O(n^2)
Space Complexity: O(1)
Solution
To solve the problem, we will use a nested loop approach to compare each person with every other person. For each person x, we will iterate through all other persons y and check the three conditions to determine if a friend request can be sent. We will maintain a counter to keep track of the total number of valid friend requests.
The algorithm primarily utilizes an array to store ages and performs straightforward arithmetic checks based on the defined rules.