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Sell Diminishing-Valued Colored Balls - Solution & Explanation

MediumArrayMathBinary SearchGreedy11 min readAsked at: Amazon, Visa, Groupon +2
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Problem Statement

You have an inventory of different colored balls, and there is a customer that wants orders balls of any color.

The customer weirdly values the colored balls. Each colored ball's value is the number of balls of that color you currently have in your inventory. For example, if you own 6 yellow balls, the customer would pay 6 for the first yellow ball. After the transaction, there are only 5 yellow balls left, so the next yellow ball is then valued at 5 (i.e., the value of the balls decreases as you sell more to the customer).

You are given an integer array, inventory, where inventory[i] represents the number of balls of the ith color that you initially own. You are also given an integer orders, which represents the total number of balls that the customer wants. You can sell the balls in any order.

Return the maximum total value that you can attain after selling orders colored balls. As the answer may be too large, return it modulo 109 + 7.

 

Example 1:

Input: inventory = [2,5], orders = 4
Output: 14
Explanation: Sell the 1st color 1 time (2) and the 2nd color 3 times (5 + 4 + 3).
The maximum total value is 2 + 5 + 4 + 3 = 14.

Example 2:

Input: inventory = [3,5], orders = 6
Output: 19
Explanation: Sell the 1st color 2 times (3 + 2) and the 2nd color 4 times (5 + 4 + 3 + 2).
The maximum total value is 3 + 2 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 = 19.

 

Constraints:

  • 1 <= inventory.length <= 105
  • 1 <= inventory[i] <= 109
  • 1 <= orders <= min(sum(inventory[i]), 109)

Approach Overview

Problem Overview: You are given an inventory where each number represents how many balls of a color you have. The value of a ball equals the current count of that color, and every sale decreases its value by 1. The goal is to sell exactly orders balls while maximizing total profit.

Approach 1: Greedy with Priority Queue (Heap) (Time: O(orders log n), Space: O(n))

This approach always sells the most valuable ball available. Store all inventory counts in a max heap. Each step removes the largest value, adds it to profit, decreases it by one, and pushes it back if the value is still positive. The greedy idea works because selling higher-valued balls earlier always increases total revenue. A heap ensures efficient retrieval of the current maximum. This approach is intuitive and easy to implement using a heap (priority queue), though it can be slower when orders is very large because every sale requires a heap operation.

Approach 2: Binary Search + Arithmetic Series (Time: O(n log maxValue), Space: O(1))

A more optimized strategy avoids simulating every sale. Instead, observe that selling balls from a color produces a decreasing sequence like k + (k-1) + (k-2) .... Use binary search to find a threshold value x such that selling all balls valued above x satisfies or nearly satisfies the required number of orders. Once the threshold is found, compute the profit using arithmetic series formulas instead of iterating per sale. For each inventory value greater than x, sum the range value ... x+1. Remaining orders at value x are added afterward. This reduces the work dramatically and is the typical optimal solution in interviews.

The solution also benefits from sorting or iterating the array of inventory counts while calculating how many balls exist above the threshold. The mathematical insight transforms a potentially billions-step simulation into a few arithmetic operations.

Recommended for interviews: The binary search approach is what interviewers usually expect because it demonstrates strong reasoning with greedy strategy and arithmetic series optimization. Implementing the heap solution first shows correct intuition about always selling the highest-value ball, but recognizing the need to aggregate ranges with math separates a good solution from a great one.

Approach 1: Approach 1: Greedy with Priority Queue

This approach uses a max-heap (priority queue) to always sell the highest valued balls first.

Steps:

  1. Insert all inventory values into a max-heap.
  2. While orders remain, pop the largest value from the heap, sell it, and push the remaining (value - 1) back into the heap.
  3. Keep track of the total value sold and reduce the number of orders after each sale.
  4. Finally, return the total value modulo 10^9 + 7.

The algorithm uses a max-heap to store the values of colored balls in descending order. It repeatedly pops the highest value, sells a number of balls equal to the difference between the current max and the next max, adjusts the orders remaining, and calculates the total value gained. The heap is adjusted accordingly to reflect the new ball count.

Code

PythonJavaScript

Python

JavaScript

Complexity

Time Complexity: O(n+mlog n) where n is the number of colors and m is the number of orders.
Space Complexity: O(n) for storing the heap and other auxiliary structures.

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Approach 2: Approach 2: Binary Search

This approach uses binary search to determine the threshold at which we should stop selling each ball to ensure maximum profit.

Steps:

  1. Sort the inventory values in descending order.
  2. Apply binary search to find the maximum price we can sell at while still fulfilling the orders.
  3. On each iteration of the binary search, calculate the possible number of balls we can sell at a given price.
  4. Adjust the search range based on whether we can fulfill the order or not.

This C++ solution determines the threshold price at which to stop selling balls using a binary search over the maximum number of balls that can be sold. The sorted inventory helps easily determine levels at which ball count must diminish. The search seeks to balance ball sale count against the maximum price achievable.

Code

C++Java

C++

Java

Complexity

Time Complexity: O(nlog m) where n is the number of colors and m is the maximum ball count.
Space Complexity: O(1) aside from input storage.

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Approach 3: Default Approach

Code

PythonJavaC++Go

Python

Java

C++

Go

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Complexity Comparison

ApproachComplexity
Approach 1: Greedy with Priority Queue

Time Complexity: O(n+mlog n) where n is the number of colors and m is the number of orders.
Space Complexity: O(n) for storing the heap and other auxiliary structures.

Approach 2: Binary Search

Time Complexity: O(nlog m) where n is the number of colors and m is the maximum ball count.
Space Complexity: O(1) aside from input storage.

Default Approach—

Detailed Complexity Analysis

ApproachTimeSpaceWhen to Use
Greedy with Max HeapO(orders log n)O(n)Good for understanding the greedy idea and when orders are relatively small
Binary Search + Arithmetic SeriesO(n log maxValue)O(1)Optimal solution when orders can be very large and simulation would be too slow

Video Solution

Leetcode 1648 Sell Diminishing Valued Colored Balls • Fraz • 11,086 views views

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is Sell Diminishing-Valued Colored Balls easy or hard?
The problem is rated Medium on LeetCode but can feel closer to Hard if you try to simulate each sale directly. The challenge is recognizing that the values form decreasing sequences and can be summed using arithmetic formulas instead of iterating through every order.
Sell Diminishing-Valued Colored Balls Python/Java solution
Python implementations typically use a heap via heapq (simulating a max heap with negative values) for the greedy approach. Java solutions often implement the optimized binary search method with arithmetic series calculations to avoid simulating every sale.
How to solve Sell Diminishing-Valued Colored Balls in O(n)?
A strictly O(n) solution is not typical because the optimal algorithm uses binary search over the value range, giving O(n log maxValue). However, once the threshold value is determined, the remaining profit calculation for each inventory entry is linear using arithmetic progression formulas.
What is the best approach for Sell Diminishing-Valued Colored Balls?
The most efficient approach uses binary search combined with arithmetic series math. Instead of selling balls one by one, you find a threshold value where all balls above that value are sold. The profit from each range can then be computed using the formula for the sum of consecutive integers. This reduces the complexity to O(n log maxValue) with constant extra space.
Is Sell Diminishing-Valued Colored Balls asked at Google/Amazon/Meta?
This problem tests greedy reasoning, priority queues, and mathematical optimization—topics frequently asked in interviews at companies like Amazon, Google, and Meta. Variants involving selling items with decreasing value or maximizing profit under constraints appear regularly in technical interviews.
What data structure is used in Sell Diminishing-Valued Colored Balls?
The straightforward implementation uses a max heap (priority queue) to always sell the highest-value ball first. The optimized approach relies more on mathematical reasoning with arrays and binary search rather than heavy data structure usage.
What is the time complexity of Sell Diminishing-Valued Colored Balls?
The heap-based greedy solution runs in O(orders log n) time because each sale requires removing and reinserting an element in a priority queue. The optimized binary search approach runs in O(n log maxValue) time by searching for the selling threshold and computing profits using arithmetic series formulas.

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