Practice Total Cost to Hire K Workers

Read the task, work through the examples, and check your approach against the constraints. Use the original LeetCode task for coding and submissions.

Medium#2462

LeetCode Problem

Total Cost to Hire K Workers

Array Two Pointers Heap (Priority Queue)Simulation

Problem Statement

costs[i] is worker i hiring cost. In each of k rounds, consider the first candidates and last candidates workers still unchosen, or all remaining workers if fewer. Hire the cheapest among that union, breaking ties by earlier position, and remove that worker. Return the total hiring cost; an overlap does not make a worker eligible twice.

Source: Total Cost to Hire K Workers on LeetCode. Use the original task for its coding environment and submissions.

Examples

# Example 1

Input

costs = [17,12,10,2,7,2,11,20,8], k = 3, candidates = 4

Output

# Example 2

Input

costs = [1,2,4,1], k = 3, candidates = 3

Output

Constraints

1 <= costs.length <= 10^5

1 <= costs[i] <= 10^5

1 <= k, candidates <= costs.length

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