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LeetCode 1658 · Solution & editorial
You are given an integer array nums and an integer x. In one operation, you can either remove the leftmost or the rightmost element from the array nums and subtract its value from x. Note that this modifies the array for future operations.
Minimum Operations to Reduce X to Zero is a Sliding Window problem, in the Variable Size (Condition-Based) subpattern. The pattern covers fixed-size, variable-size, and character frequency matching window techniques
Master variable-size sliding window for condition-based problems like longest substring without repeating characters.
The reference solution runs in O(n) time and O(1) space.
Minimum Operations to Reduce X to Zero has been reported in interviews at Google.
The full editorial is part of Pro
It explains the core insight, the complexity analysis and the common mistakes, with a worked solution.
Minimum Operations to Reduce X to Zero is a Sliding Window problem, in the Variable Size (Condition-Based) subpattern. Once the approach above makes sense, write it yourself and then work through the neighbouring problems that reuse it.