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MD ARIFUL HAQUE
MD ARIFUL HAQUE

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2327. Number of People Aware of a Secret

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2327. Number of People Aware of a Secret

Difficulty: Medium

Topics: Dynamic Programming, Queue, Simulation, Weekly Contest 300

On day 1, one person discovers a secret.

You are given an integer delay, which means that each person will share the secret with a new person every day, starting from delay days after discovering the secret. You are also given an integer forget, which means that each person will forget the secret forget days after discovering it. A person cannot share the secret on the same day they forgot it, or on any day afterwards.

Given an integer n, return the number of people who know the secret at the end of day n. Since the answer may be very large, return it modulo 109 + 7.

Example 1:

  • Input: n = 6, delay = 2, forget = 4
  • Output: 5
  • Explanation:
    • Day 1: Suppose the first person is named A. (1 person)
    • Day 2: A is the only person who knows the secret. (1 person)
    • Day 3: A shares the secret with a new person, B. (2 people)
    • Day 4: A shares the secret with a new person, C. (3 people)
    • Day 5: A forgets the secret, and B shares the secret with a new person, D. (3 people)
    • Day 6: B shares the secret with E, and C shares the secret with F. (5 people)

Example 2:

  • Input: n = 4, delay = 1, forget = 3
  • Output: 6
  • Explanation:
    • Day 1: The first person is named A. (1 person)
    • Day 2: A shares the secret with B. (2 people)
    • Day 3: A and B share the secret with 2 new people, C and D. (4 people)
    • Day 4: A forgets the secret. B, C, and D share the secret with 3 new people. (6 people)

Constraints:

  • 2 <= n <= 1000
  • 1 <= delay < forget <= n

Hint:

  1. Let dp[i][j] be the number of people who have known the secret for exactly j + 1 days, at day i.
  2. If j > 0, dp[i][j] = dp[i – 1][j – 1].
  3. dp[i][0] = sum(dp[i – 1][j]) for j in [delay – 1, forget – 2].

Solution:

We need to determine the number of people who know a secret by the end of day n, considering that each person shares the secret with a new person every day starting from delay days after discovering it, and forgets the secret forget days after discovering it. The challenge is to model the propagation and forgetting of the secret over time efficiently.

Approach

  1. Dynamic Programming (DP) Setup: We use a DP array dp where dp[i] represents the number of people who discover the secret on day i.
  2. Initialization: On day 1, one person discovers the secret, so dp[1] = 1.
  3. Propagation Calculation: For each subsequent day i (from 2 to n), the number of new people who discover the secret is the sum of people who started sharing from day i - forget + 1 to day i - delay. This is because a person who discovered the secret on day j will share it from day j + delay to day j + forget - 1.
  4. Result Calculation: The total number of people who know the secret by day n is the sum of people who discovered the secret from day n - forget + 1 to day n. These are the people who haven't forgotten the secret by day n.

Let's implement this solution in PHP: 2327. Number of People Aware of a Secret

<?php
/**
 * @param Integer $n
 * @param Integer $delay
 * @param Integer $forget
 * @return Integer
 */
function peopleAwareOfSecret($n, $delay, $forget) {
    ...
    ...
    ...
    /**
     * go to ./solution.php
     */
}

// Test cases
echo peopleAwareOfSecret(6, 2, 4) . "\n"; // Output: 5
echo peopleAwareOfSecret(4, 1, 3) . "\n"; // Output: 6
?>
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Explanation:

  1. Initialization: The array dp is initialized to store the number of people who discover the secret each day. The first day is initialized with one person.
  2. DP Array Calculation: For each day i, we calculate the number of new people who learn the secret by summing the contributions from all people who started sharing between day i - forget + 1 and day i - delay. This ensures we only count people who are still actively sharing the secret on day i.
  3. Result Calculation: The result is obtained by summing the values in the dp array from day n - forget + 1 to day n. This accounts for all people who discovered the secret recently enough that they haven't forgotten it by day n.
  4. Modulo Operation: All operations are performed modulo 109 + 7 to handle large numbers and prevent overflow.

This approach efficiently tracks the propagation of the secret over time using dynamic programming, ensuring correctness while adhering to the constraints. The complexity is O(n2), which is feasible given the constraints n ≤ 1000.

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