LeetCode Entry

2144. Minimum Cost of Buying Candies With Discount

01.06.2026 easy 2026 kotlin rust

Min sum taking 2 out of 3

2144. Minimum Cost of Buying Candies With Discount easy substack youtube

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Problem TLDR

Min sum taking 2 out of 3

Intuition

Sort descending, take greedily

Approach

• if you not sure which way is better forward or backward, you can make min(forward,backward)

Complexity

• Time complexity: \(O(nlogn)\)

• Space complexity: \(O(n|1)\)

Code

    fun minimumCost(c: IntArray) =
        c.sortedDescending().filterIndexed {i,_->i%3<2}.sum()

    pub fn minimum_cost(mut c: Vec<i32>) -> i32 {
        c.sort_unstable_by(|a, b| b.cmp(a));
        c.chunks(3).flat_map(|c| c.iter().take(2)).sum()
    }