Water Bottles II Solution in Python

Problem Description

Welcome to the world of Water Bottles II, where the only thing more confusing than your last relationship is how to maximize the number of bottles you can drink! Imagine you have a certain number of water bottles, and for every few bottles you drink, you can exchange them for more. Sounds like a party, right? But wait, there’s a catch! You can only exchange a specific number of empty bottles for a new one.

So, if you’ve ever been in a situation where you had to choose between drinking that last bit of soda or saving the bottle for a refund, you’ll relate to this problem. The goal is to figure out how many bottles you can drink in total, given the initial number of bottles and the exchange rate.

Code Solution

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class Solution:
    def maxBottlesDrunk(self, numBottles: int, numExchange: int) -> int:
        ans = numBottles

        while numBottles >= numExchange:
            numBottles = numBottles - numExchange + 1
            numExchange += 1
            ans += 1

        return ans

Approach

The approach taken in this solution is straightforward yet effective. We start with the total number of bottles we have and keep track of how many we can drink. As long as we have enough empty bottles to exchange for at least one new bottle, we continue the process. Each time we exchange bottles, we increment our total count of bottles drunk. It’s like a never-ending cycle of hydration!

Time and Space Complexity

Time Complexity: O(n), where n is the number of bottles. In the worst case, we might have to loop through the number of bottles until we can no longer exchange them.

Space Complexity: O(1), as we are using a constant amount of space regardless of the input size.

Real-World Example

Imagine you’re at a party with a limited supply of drinks. You start with 10 bottles of soda. After drinking them, you realize you can exchange 3 empty bottles for 1 new one. You keep drinking and exchanging until you can no longer get a new bottle. By the end of the night, you’ve maximized your soda intake and probably regretted every sip!