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Problem · Array

Get the Fewest Moves (~Operations~)~

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Problem statement

You are given an integer list named data. The objective is to adjust all elements in this list so that each becomes zero. You can carry out the following move any number of times:

--> Pick a prefix portion of the list and either increase or decrease every element in that prefix by 1.

Your task is to figure out the fewest moves required to turn all the elements into zero.

Output - Print a single number — the minimum number of steps needed.

A prefix segment refers to a continuous collection of elements starting from the first item in the sequence. For instance, [1], [1, 2], [1, 2, 3], and so on are valid prefixes of the sequence [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

It is assured that turning all values in the list to zero is always achievable.

Update 06-26-2026: This problem has been confirmed as a duplicate of Minimum Operations to Make the Integer Zero. I recommend practicing that version because it is more complete. I merged this page's last seen dates into that problem, so I will not keep tracking this duplicate separately going forward. 🐬

Function

getMinimumOperations(d: int[]) → int

Examples

Example 1

d = [3, 2, 1]return = 3

The most optimal sequence of steps is as follows: Step 1: Choose a prefix of size 2 and reduce each element by 1. After this operation, the list becomes [2, 1, 1]. Step 2: Choose a prefix of size 1 and reduce its value by 1. The list now looks like [1, 1, 1]. Step 3: Select a prefix covering 3 elements and decrease all by 1. After this, the list turns into [0, 0, 0]. The total number of operations required is 3. It is not possible to turn all elements into zero using fewer steps.

Example 2

d = [3, 2, 0, 0, -1]return = 5

Step 1: Select a prefix of length 1 and subtract 1 from it. After this step, the list updates to [2, 2, 0, 0, -1]. Step 2: Choose the first 2 elements and decrease them by 1. Now, the list becomes [1, 1, 0, 0, -1]. Step 3: Pick a prefix containing the first 4 elements and reduce each by 1. After performing this, the list changes to [0, 0, -1, -1, -1]. Step 4: Select the first 2 elements and decrease them by 1. The updated list is [-1, -1, -1, -1, -1]. Step 5: Finally, choose the entire list (prefix length 5) and add 1 to every element. The list becomes [0, 0, 0, 0, 0].

Constraints

1 ≤ n ≤ 10^5
-10^9 ≤ d[i] ≤ 10^9