Minimum Number of Removals to Make Mountain Array
Difficulty: Hard
Category: DSA
Topics: Array, Binary Search, Dynamic Programming, Greedy
Asked at: Microsoft
You may recall that an array `arr` is a **mountain array** if and only if:
- `arr.length >= 3`
- There exists some index `i` (**0-indexed**) with `0 < i < arr.length - 1` such that:
- `arr[0] < arr[1] < ... < arr[i - 1] < arr[i]`
- `arr[i] > arr[i + 1] > ... > arr[arr.length - 1]`
Given an integer array `nums`, return _the **minimum** number of elements to remove to make _`nums__`_ __a **mountain array**._
**Example 1:**
**Input:** nums = [1,3,1]
**Output:** 0
**Explanation:** The array itself is a mountain array so we do not need to remove any elements.
```
**Example 2:**
**Input:** nums = [2,1,1,5,6,2,3,1]
**Output:** 3
**Explanation:** One solution is to remove the elements at indices 0, 1, and 5, making the array nums = [1,5,6,3,1].
```
**Constraints:**
- `3 <= nums.length <= 1000`
- `1 <= nums[i] <= 109`
- It is guaranteed that you can make a mountain array out of `nums`.