Iditarod

Problem:

TopCoder Problem Statement - Iditarod

Single Round Match 160 Round 1 - Division I, Level One

Overview:

Determine the average number of minutes contestants needed to complete a multi-day race.

Java Source:

01: public class Iditarod {
02:  
03:  public int avgMinutes(String[] times) {
04: 
05:   int totalMinutes = 0;
06: 
07:   // Add up the total minutes for each finishing time.
08:   for (String t : times)  {
09:    totalMinutes += calcMinutes(t);
10:   }
11: 
12:   // Get the average.
13:   double avg = (double) totalMinutes / (double) times.length;
14: 
15:   // Round off by adding .5 and truncating.
16:   avg += 0.5;
17:   return (int) avg;
18:  }
19: 
20:  private static int calcMinutes(String s)  {
21: 
22:   // Format is: hh:mm xM, DAY n
23: 
24:   int hours = Integer.parseInt(s.substring(0,2));
25:   int minutes = Integer.parseInt(s.substring(3,5));
26:   boolean isPM = (s.charAt(6) == 'P');
27: 
28:   // Handles both 1 and 2 digit day lengths.
29:   int day = Integer.parseInt(s.substring(14, s.length()));
30: 
31:   // Handle 12 PM and 12 AM hours
32:   if (hours == 12)  {
33:    if (isPM)  {
34:     hours = 0;
35:    } else {
36:     hours = 24;
37:     day -= 1;
38:    }
39:   }
40: 
41:   if (isPM) hours += 12;
42: 
43:   // Subtract off the start time.
44:   hours -= 8;
45: 
46:   // Minutes per day, times number of days (don't count day 1)
47:   int totalMinutes = (24*60) * (day - 1);
48: 
49:   totalMinutes += (60 * hours);
50: 
51:   totalMinutes += minutes;
52: 
53:   return totalMinutes;
54:  }
55: 
56: }

Notes:

Not much difficulty here. avgMinutes() loops through all the finishing times and keeps a running total of the number of minutes for all the competitors to finish. Then it just divides the today by the number of times - casting to double to avoid losing decimal places. To round off, just add 0.5 and truncate - a trick everyone should know. There's no danger of overflow here, so just stick with the simplest thing that works.

Calculating the number of minutes for a given time is also pretty simple. We just need to take care dealing with the 12:00 PM and 12:00 AM hours. Here, if it's 12 PM, I set the hours to 0. If it's 12 AM, I set hours to 24, and subtract a day. Then for any PM times, I add 12 hours. It may take a minute to think it through, but it's not tough. Remember to subtract off the 8:00 AM starting time. Then it's just a matter of adding up the number of minutes in a day, an hour, and the minutes portion.

Thank you for taking the time to read this solution. I welcome any feedback you may have.

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