How should I practice Minimum Stick Connection Cost?

Start by reading the full statement, solve the visible examples, then compare the pattern against related Amazon phone screen and onsite interview problems in FastPrep.

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Minimum Stick Connection Cost

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Problem statement

You are given an integer array sticks, where each element is the length of a stick.

You may connect any two sticks with lengths x and y. The new stick has length x + y, and the cost of this operation is also x + y.

Return the minimum total cost required to connect all sticks into one stick.

Function

minimumStickConnectionCost(sticks: int[]) → int

Examples

Example 1

sticks = [2, 4, 3]return = 14

Connect 2 and 3 for cost 5, then connect 5 and 4 for cost 9. The total cost is 14.

Example 2

sticks = [1, 8, 3, 5]return = 30

One optimal sequence is 1 + 3 = 4, then 4 + 5 = 9, then 8 + 9 = 17, for total cost 4 + 9 + 17 = 30.

Constraints

1 <= sticks.length <= 10⁴
1 <= sticks[i] <= 10⁴