Allocate Books

Problem

Given page counts of books in order and a number of students, return the minimum possible maximum pages assigned to a student, where each student receives a contiguous run of books. Return -1 when students < 1 or students > len(pages).

Binary search the limit and greedily check whether the books can be allocated with at most the allowed number of students.

Hint

More students than books is impossible; otherwise binary search the page limit.

Test cases

case 1

in: [[12,34,67,90],2]

expected: 113

case 2

in: [[12,34,67,90],3]

expected: 90

case 3

in: [[10,20,30],1]

expected: 60

case 4

in: [[10,20,30],3]

expected: 30

case 5

in: [[10,20,30],4]

expected: -1

Starter codePython

def allocate_books(pages, students):
    # Your code here
    pass

5 test cases · run your code against them in the editor