2025-02-24 Daily Challenge
Today I have done leetcode's February LeetCoding Challenge with cpp
.
February LeetCoding Challenge 24
Description
Most Profitable Path in a Tree
There is an undirected tree with n
nodes labeled from 0
to n - 1
, rooted at node 0
. You are given a 2D integer array edges
of length n - 1
where edges[i] = [ai, bi]
indicates that there is an edge between nodes ai
and bi
in the tree.
At every node i
, there is a gate. You are also given an array of even integers amount
, where amount[i]
represents:
- the price needed to open the gate at node
i
, ifamount[i]
is negative, or, - the cash reward obtained on opening the gate at node
i
, otherwise.
The game goes on as follows:
- Initially, Alice is at node
0
and Bob is at nodebob
. - At every second, Alice and Bob each move to an adjacent node. Alice moves towards some leaf node, while Bob moves towards node
0
. - For every node along their path, Alice and Bob either spend money to open the gate at that node, or accept the reward. Note that:
- If the gate is already open, no price will be required, nor will there be any cash reward.
- If Alice and Bob reach the node simultaneously, they share the price/reward for opening the gate there. In other words, if the price to open the gate is
c
, then both Alice and Bob payc / 2
each. Similarly, if the reward at the gate isc
, both of them receivec / 2
each.
- If Alice reaches a leaf node, she stops moving. Similarly, if Bob reaches node
0
, he stops moving. Note that these events are independent of each other.
Return the maximum net income Alice can have if she travels towards the optimal leaf node.
Example 1:

Input: edges = [[0,1],[1,2],[1,3],[3,4]], bob = 3, amount = [-2,4,2,-4,6] Output: 6 Explanation: The above diagram represents the given tree. The game goes as follows: - Alice is initially on node 0, Bob on node 3. They open the gates of their respective nodes. Alice's net income is now -2. - Both Alice and Bob move to node 1. Since they reach here simultaneously, they open the gate together and share the reward. Alice's net income becomes -2 + (4 / 2) = 0. - Alice moves on to node 3. Since Bob already opened its gate, Alice's income remains unchanged. Bob moves on to node 0, and stops moving. - Alice moves on to node 4 and opens the gate there. Her net income becomes 0 + 6 = 6. Now, neither Alice nor Bob can make any further moves, and the game ends. It is not possible for Alice to get a higher net income.
Example 2:

Input: edges = [[0,1]], bob = 1, amount = [-7280,2350] Output: -7280 Explanation: Alice follows the path 0->1 whereas Bob follows the path 1->0. Thus, Alice opens the gate at node 0 only. Hence, her net income is -7280.
Constraints:
2 <= n <= 105
edges.length == n - 1
edges[i].length == 2
0 <= ai, bi < n
ai != bi
edges
represents a valid tree.1 <= bob < n
amount.length == n
amount[i]
is an even integer in the range[-104, 104]
.
Solution
class Solution {
bool findBobPath(
int current,
int time,
vector<bool> &visited,
map<int, int> &visitTime,
const vector<vector<int>> &neighbors
) {
visitTime[current] = time,
visited[current] = true;
if(!current) return true;
for(auto next : neighbors[current]) {
if(visited[next]) continue;
if(findBobPath(next, time + 1, visited, visitTime, neighbors)) return true;
}
visitTime.erase(current);
return false;
}
public:
int mostProfitablePath(vector<vector<int>>& edges, int bob, vector<int>& amount) {
int n = amount.size();
int answer = INT_MIN;
vector<vector<int>> neighbors(n);
for(auto &e : edges) {
neighbors[e[0]].push_back(e[1]);
neighbors[e[1]].push_back(e[0]);
}
vector<bool> visited(n);
map<int, int> bobVisitTime;
findBobPath(bob, 0, visited, bobVisitTime, neighbors);
queue<pair<int, int>> q;
q.push({0, 0});
fill(visited.begin(), visited.end(), false);
int time = 0;
while(q.size()) {
int sz = q.size();
for(auto _ = 0; _ < sz; ++_) {
auto [current, income] = q.front();
visited[current] = true;
q.pop();
if(!bobVisitTime.count(current) || time < bobVisitTime[current]) {
income += amount[current];
} else if(time == bobVisitTime[current]) {
income += amount[current] / 2;
}
if(neighbors[current].size() == 1 && current) {
answer = max(answer, income);
}
for(auto next : neighbors[current]) {
if(visited[next]) continue;
q.push({next, income});
}
}
time += 1;
}
return answer;
}
};
// Accepted
// 31/31 cases passed (319 ms)
// Your runtime beats 16.7 % of cpp submissions
// Your memory usage beats 37.05 % of cpp submissions (166.3 MB)