How should I practice Allocate Mailboxes?

Start by reading the full statement, solve the visible examples, then compare the pattern against related Bloomberg LP onsite interview problems in FastPrep.

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Allocate Mailboxes

Bloomberg LP● HardNEW GRADONSITE INTERVIEW

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Problem statement

Houses stand at the integer positions in houses along one street. Install exactly k mailboxes at integer positions so that the sum of every house's distance to its nearest mailbox is as small as possible.

Return that minimum total distance.

Function

minMailboxDistance(houses: int[], k: int) → int

Examples

Example 1

houses = [5,10,15,20]k = 3return = 5

Mailboxes at 5, 10, and any median position between 15 and 20 give total distance 5.

Example 2

houses = [6,7,8,12]k = 2return = 2

Positions 7 and 12 serve the houses with total distance 2.

Constraints

1 <= houses.length <= 100.
1 <= k <= houses.length.
House positions are distinct integers between 1 and 10000.