“Discover the journey of my almost-successful HackerRank Birthday Cake challenge! Join me as I recount the twists and turns that led to unexpected hurdles in this coding adventure.”

Understanding the Birthday Cake Candles Challenge on HackerRank

Introduction

The Birthday Cake Candles challenge on HackerRank is a popular problem that tests your understanding of basic programming concepts such as loops, conditionals, and arrays. The task is simple yet engaging: given an array of integers representing the heights of candles, you need to determine how many candles are the tallest. This problem not only sharpens your algorithmic skills but also enhances your ability to manipulate arrays and perform conditional checks efficiently.

Problem Statement

In this challenge, you are given a list of candle heights, and your goal is to identify the tallest candles among them. For example, if the heights are represented as an array [3, 2, 1, 3], the tallest candles are of height 3, and your output should indicate that there are two such candles. The input consists of an integer that denotes the number of candles, followed by a list of integers representing the heights of each candle.

Input Format

The input format is straightforward. You will first receive an integer n that specifies the number of candles. This is followed by a single line containing n space-separated integers, each representing the height of a candle. For instance:

4
3 2 1 3

Output Format

Your output should be a single integer that indicates how many candles of the tallest height there are. For the previous example, the output would be 2, as there are two candles of height 3.

Approach to Solve the Problem

To solve the Birthday Cake Candles problem, you can follow these steps:

1. Read the number of candles and their respective heights.
2. Determine the maximum height among the candle heights using a loop or a built-in function.
3. Count how many candles have that maximum height.
4. Output the count of the tallest candles.

Sample Code

Here is a simple implementation in Python:

def birthdayCakeCandles(candles):
    tallest = max(candles)  # Find the tallest candle height
    return candles.count(tallest)  # Count how many of the tallest candles there are

# Example usage:
n = 4
candles = [3, 2, 1, 3]
print(birthdayCakeCandles(candles))  # Output: 2

Key Points to Remember

While solving the Birthday Cake Candles problem, keep the following points in mind:

• Efficiency is crucial; although the problem can be solved using nested loops, strive for a solution with linear time complexity.
• Make sure to handle edge cases, such as all candles being of the same height.
• Consider using built-in functions for finding maximum values or counting occurrences to simplify your code.

Conclusion

The Birthday Cake Candles challenge is an excellent way for beginners to practice their coding skills and for experienced programmers to refine their approach to problem-solving. Understanding the logic behind the problem and implementing an efficient solution can greatly enhance your programming capabilities. Happy coding!