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You are given an integer array candyType of length n, where candyType[i] represents the type of the i-th candy you have. Your goal is to distribute the candies equally between you and your sibling. Return the maximum number of different types of candies you can eat if you follow the above rules.

Clarifying Questions

Before moving forward with the solution, let’s clarify a few things:

  1. How is the distribution of candies handled? Each person should get an equal number of candies.

  2. Can the array contain duplicate types? Yes, the array can contain duplicate types of candies.

  3. What is the maximum length (n) of the candyType array? The maximum length isn’t mentioned here, but we can assume it’s within reasonable limits as per LeetCode constraints (typically up to 10^4 or 10^5).

  4. What should I return if n is very small or zero? If there are no candies, the result should be 0 as you cannot eat any types of candies.

Strategy

To solve this problem:

  1. Identify Unique Types: We need to know how many unique types of candies there are.
  2. Calculate Maximum Allowed Types: Each person can get n / 2 candies. The number of types you can get would be the minimum of n / 2 (total candies you can eat) and the number of unique candy types.

Code

def distributeCandies(candyType):
    # Step 1: Find the unique types of candy
    unique_candies = set(candyType)
    
    # Step 2: Each person gets n // 2 candies
    max_candies_per_person = len(candyType) // 2
    
    # Step 3: Calculate the maximum types of candies you can eat
    return min(len(unique_candies), max_candies_per_person)

# Example usage:
candyType = [1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3]
print(distributeCandies(candyType))  # Output: 3

Time Complexity

Hence, the overall time complexity is O(n), where n is the length of the candyType array.

This solution is efficient and handles even the upper constraints well, given the linear complexity.

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