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1706. Where Will the Ball Fall

Difficulty Topics

Description

You have a 2-D grid of size m x n representing a box, and you have n balls. The box is open on the top and bottom sides.

Each cell in the box has a diagonal board spanning two corners of the cell that can redirect a ball to the right or to the left.

  • A board that redirects the ball to the right spans the top-left corner to the bottom-right corner and is represented in the grid as 1.
  • A board that redirects the ball to the left spans the top-right corner to the bottom-left corner and is represented in the grid as -1.

We drop one ball at the top of each column of the box. Each ball can get stuck in the box or fall out of the bottom. A ball gets stuck if it hits a "V" shaped pattern between two boards or if a board redirects the ball into either wall of the box.

Return an array answer of size n where answer[i] is the column that the ball falls out of at the bottom after dropping the ball from the ith column at the top, or -1 if the ball gets stuck in the box.

 

Example 1:

Input: grid = [[1,1,1,-1,-1],[1,1,1,-1,-1],[-1,-1,-1,1,1],[1,1,1,1,-1],[-1,-1,-1,-1,-1]]
Output: [1,-1,-1,-1,-1]
Explanation: This example is shown in the photo.
Ball b0 is dropped at column 0 and falls out of the box at column 1.
Ball b1 is dropped at column 1 and will get stuck in the box between column 2 and 3 and row 1.
Ball b2 is dropped at column 2 and will get stuck on the box between column 2 and 3 and row 0.
Ball b3 is dropped at column 3 and will get stuck on the box between column 2 and 3 and row 0.
Ball b4 is dropped at column 4 and will get stuck on the box between column 2 and 3 and row 1.

Example 2:

Input: grid = [[-1]]
Output: [-1]
Explanation: The ball gets stuck against the left wall.

Example 3:

Input: grid = [[1,1,1,1,1,1],[-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1],[1,1,1,1,1,1],[-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1]]
Output: [0,1,2,3,4,-1]

 

Constraints:

  • m == grid.length
  • n == grid[i].length
  • 1 <= m, n <= 100
  • grid[i][j] is 1 or -1.

Solution

where-will-the-ball-fall.py
class Solution:
    def findBall(self, grid: List[List[int]]) -> List[int]:
        rows, cols = len(grid), len(grid[0])

        def go(x, y):
            if x == rows: return y

            if grid[x][y] == 1:
                if y == cols - 1 or grid[x][y + 1] == -1:
                    return -1

                return go(x + 1, y + 1)
            else:
                if y == 0 or grid[x][y - 1] == 1:
                    return -1

                return go(x + 1, y - 1)

        return [go(0, y) for y in range(cols)]