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Minimum Steps with Double and Floor-Divide

Bloomberg LP● MediumNEW GRADPHONE SCREENONSITE INTERVIEW

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Problem statement

Start with the integer 1. In one step, replace the current value x with either:

x * 2, or
floor(x / 3).

Given target, return the minimum number of steps needed to reach it.

Function

minStepsToTarget(target: int) → int

Examples

Example 1

target = 1return = 0

The starting value already equals the target.

Example 2

target = 5return = 5

One shortest sequence is 1 -> 2 -> 4 -> 8 -> 16 -> 5.

Example 3

target = 3return = 7

A shortest sequence is 1 -> 2 -> 4 -> 8 -> 16 -> 32 -> 10 -> 3.

Constraints

0 <= target <= 100
All intermediate values are represented with signed 64-bit integers.
Every target in the allowed range is reachable.