Minimum number of operations to get from source to target. - algorithm

Question

I came across this question during an interview -
Convert a number source to target in the minimum number of operations.
Allowed Operations
Multiplied by 2.
Addition by 1.
subtraction by 1.
0 < source, target <= 1000.
I tried going the naive recursive route(O(3^n)) ie. subtract 1, add 1 and multiply by 2 at each level to try and find a solution that I could extend to Dynamic Programming but couldnt because of an infinite loop.
//Naive approach Via Recursion
int minMoves(int source, int target){
if(source <1 || source > target){
return -1;
}
int moves =0;
// Potential infinite loop - consider 3,6-> 2,6- >1,6->(0,6)x (2,6)->1,6->(0,6)x (1,6)->(0,6)x (2,6)->1,6..
int movesLeft = minMoves(source -1, target) ==-1? Integer.MAX_VALUE:minMoves(source -1, target);
int movesRight = minMoves(source +1, target) ==-1? Integer.MAX_VALUE:minMoves(source +1, target);
int moves2X = minMoves(2*source, target) ==-1? Integer.MAX_VALUE:minMoves(2*source, target);
moves = 1+ Math.min(Math.min(movesRight,movesLeft), moves2X);
return moves;
}
Any ideas on how I can tweak my solution? Or possibly a better way to solve it?

Answer 1

If you think about your solution like a graph traversal, where each node is an intermediate value you can produce, your recursive solution is like a depth first search (DFS). You'll have to fully expand until you've tried all solutions from that "branch" of the search space before you can proceed anywhere else. If you have an infinite loop, this means it will never terminate even if a shorter path exists, and even if you don't have an infinite loop, you still have to search the rest of the solution space to make sure its optimal.
Instead, consider an approach similar to breadth first search (BFS). You expand outward uniformly, and will never search a path longer than the optimal solution. Just use FIFO queue to schedule which node to access next. This is the approach I've taken with my solver.
from queue import Queue
def solve(source, target):
queue = Queue()
path = [source]
queue.put(path)
while source != target:
queue.put(path + [source * 2])
queue.put(path + [source + 1])
queue.put(path + [source - 1])
path = queue.get()
source = path[-1]
return path
if __name__ == "__main__":
print(solve(4,79))

Answer 2

One way in which you can speed up(and possibly fix) this code, while maintaining the recursive implementation, is to use memoization.
The issue here is that you are recalculating the same value many times. Instead you can use a map to store the results that you already calculated, and reuse them when you need it again.

Answer 3

This problem can be solved constructively. First, the easy cases. If s=t, the answer is 0. If s > t, the answer is s-t because subtraction by 1 is the only operation that lowers s, and the other two can only increase the number of subtractions required.
Now let's assume s < t. Since s>0 is given, doubling will always be the fastest way to increase (if s is 1, it's tied with incrementing). So if the challenge was to make s >= t, the answer would always be the number of doublings required to do that. This procedure may overshoot t, but the first doubling greater than t and the last doubling not greater than t must be within a factor of 2 of t.
Let's look at the effect of when we do an addition or subtraction. First, look only at addition:
(((s*2) * 2) * 2) + 1 = 8s + 1
vs:
((((s+1)*2) * 2) * 2) = 8s + 8
Putting an addition before n doublings makes the final result 2^n bigger. So consider if s is 3 and t is 8. The last double not bigger than 8 is 6. This is 2 off, so if we put an addition 1 double before the last double, we get what we want: (3+1) * 2. Alternatively we could try overshooting to the first double greater than 8, which is 12. This is 4 off, so we need to put a subtraction two doublings before the last : (3-1)*2*2 = 8
In general if we are x below the target, we need to put a +1 at n doublings before the last if the binary representation of x has a 1 at the nth place.
Similarly, if we are x above the target, we do likewise with -1's.
This procedure won't help for the 1's in x's binary representation that are at a position more than the number of doublings there are. For example, if s = 100, t=207, there is only 1 doubling to do, but x is 7, which is 111. We can knock out the middle one by doing an addition first, the rest we have to do one by one (s+1)*2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1.
Here is an implementation that has a debug flag that also outputs the list of operations when the flag is defined. The run time is O(log(t)):
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <sstream>
#define DEBUG_INFO
int MinMoves(int s, int t)
{
int ans = 0;
if (t <= s)
{
return s - t; //Only subtraction will help
}
int firstDoubleGreater = s;
int lastDoubleNotGreater = s;
int nDouble = 0;
while(firstDoubleGreater <= t)
{
nDouble++;
lastDoubleNotGreater = firstDoubleGreater;
firstDoubleGreater *= 2;
}
int d1 = t - lastDoubleNotGreater;
int d2 = firstDoubleGreater - t;
if (d1 == 0)
return nDouble -1;
int strat1 = nDouble -1; //Double and increment
int strat2 = nDouble; //Double and decrement
#ifdef DEBUG_INFO
std::cout << "nDouble: " << nDouble << "\n";
std::stringstream s1Ops;
std::stringstream s2Ops;
int s1Tmp = s;
int s2Tmp = s;
#endif
int mask = 1<<strat1;
for(int pos = 0; pos < nDouble-1; pos++)
{
#ifdef DEBUG_INFO
if (d1 & mask)
{
s1Ops << s1Tmp << "+1=" << s1Tmp+1 << "\n" << s1Tmp+1 << "*2= " << (s1Tmp+1)*2 << "\n";
s1Tmp = (s1Tmp + 1) * 2;
}
else
{
s1Ops << s1Tmp << "*2= " << s1Tmp*2 << "\n";
s1Tmp = s1Tmp*2;
}
#endif
if(d1 & mask)
strat1++;
d1 = d1 & ~mask;
mask = mask >> 1;
}
strat1 += d1;
#ifdef DEBUG_INFO
if (d1 != 0)
s1Ops << s1Tmp << " +1 " << d1 << " times = " << s1Tmp + d1 << "\n";
#endif
mask = 1<<strat2;
for(int pos = 0; pos < nDouble; pos++)
{
#ifdef DEBUG_INFO
if (d2 & mask)
{
s2Ops << s2Tmp << "-1=" << s2Tmp-1 << "\n" << s2Tmp-1 << "*2= " << (s2Tmp-1)*2 << "\n";
s2Tmp = (s2Tmp-1)*2;
}
else
{
s2Ops << s2Tmp << "*2= " << s2Tmp*2 << "\n";
s2Tmp = s2Tmp*2;
}
#endif
if(d2 & mask)
strat2++;
d2 = d2 & ~mask;
mask = mask >> 1;
}
strat2 += d2;
#ifdef DEBUG_INFO
if (d2 != 0)
s2Ops << s2Tmp << " -1 " << d2 << " times = " << s2Tmp - d2 << "\n";
std::cout << "Strat1: " << strat1 << "\n";
std::cout << s1Ops.str() << "\n";
std::cout << "\n\nStrat2: " << strat2 << "\n";
std::cout << s2Ops.str() << "\n";
#endif
if (strat1 < strat2)
{
return strat1;
}
else
{
std::cout << "Strat2\n";
return strat2;
}
}
int main()
{
int s = 25;
int t = 193;
std::cout << "s = " << s << " t = " << t << "\n";
std::cout << MinMoves(s, t) << std::endl;
}

Answer 4

Short BFS algorithm. It finds the shortest path in graph where every vertex x is connected to x + 1, x - 1 and x * 2; O(n)
#include <bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;
const int _MAX_DIS = 2020;
const int _MIN_DIS = 0;
int minMoves(int begin, int end){
queue<int> Q;
int dis[_MAX_DIS];
fill(dis, dis + _MAX_DIS, -1);
dis[begin] = 0;
Q.push(begin);
while(!Q.empty()){
int v = Q.front(); Q.pop();
int tab[] = {v + 1, v - 1, v * 2};
for(int i = 0; i < 3; i++){
int w = tab[i];
if(_MIN_DIS <= w && w <= _MAX_DIS && dis[w] == -1){
Q.push(w);
dis[w] = dis[v] + 1;
}
}
}
return dis[end];
}
int main(){
ios_base::sync_with_stdio(false);
cin.tie(0);
cout.tie(0);
cout << minMoves(1, 1000);
return 0;
}