[Codility/Time Complexity] TapeEquilibrium

TapeEquilibrium

Task Discription

A non-empty array A consisting of N integers is given. Array A represents numbers on a tape.

Any integer P, such that 0 < P < N, splits this tape into two non-empty parts: A[0], A[1], ..., A[P − 1] and A[P], A[P + 1], ..., A[N − 1].

The difference between the two parts is the value of: |(A[0] + A[1] + ... + A[P − 1]) − (A[P] + A[P + 1] + ... + A[N − 1])|

In other words, it is the absolute difference between the sum of the first part and the sum of the second part.

For example, consider array A such that:

A[0] = 3
A[1] = 1
A[2] = 2
A[3] = 4
A[4] = 3
We can split this tape in four places:

P = 1, difference = |3 − 10| = 7
P = 2, difference = |4 − 9| = 5
P = 3, difference = |6 − 7| = 1
P = 4, difference = |10 − 3| = 7
Write a function:

def solution(A)

that, given a non-empty array A of N integers, returns the minimal difference that can be achieved.

For example, given:

A[0] = 3
A[1] = 1
A[2] = 2
A[3] = 4
A[4] = 3
the function should return 1, as explained above.

Write an efficient algorithm for the following assumptions:

N is an integer within the range [2..100,000];
each element of array A is an integer within the range [−1,000..1,000].

Solution

def solution(A):
    temp = sum(A)-2*A[0]
    answer = abs(temp)
    for p in range(1, len(A)-1):
        temp -= 2*A[p]
        answer = min(answer, abs(temp))
    return answer