Remove Stones to Minimize the Total

Challenge Points: 20

Level: Medium

You are given an array piles, where piles[i] indicates how many stones are in the ith pile.
You also have an integer k, meaning you must perform exactly k operations.

In one operation, select any pile and remove floor(piles[i] / 2) stones from it.
You are allowed to choose the same pile multiple times.

Your task is to return the smallest total number of stones that can remain in all piles after performing the operation exactly k times.

Example 1:

Input: piles = [8, 3, 10], k = 2

Output: 15

Explanation:

Choose pile 10: remove floor(10/2) = 5 → piles: [8,3,5] Choose pile 8: remove floor(8/2) = 4 → piles: [4,3,5] Total = 4 + 3 + 5 = 12.

Example 2:

Input: piles = [1, 2, 3, 4], k = 1

Output: 8

Explanation:

Best move is on pile 4: remove floor(4/2) = 2 → [1,2,3,2] Sum = 8.

to Continue

Accepted:

Submission:

Report an issue

Code

You need toto run or submitYou need toto run or submit

Test Case

Test Result