Binary Search on Answer•Pattern: Binary Search on Answer•Medium

Koko eating bananas — find minimum eating speed

Problem Intuition & Objective

Find the minimum eating speed k such that all piles are eaten within h hours.

Time ComplexityO(n log m) — m = max pile
Optimal
Space ComplexityO(1)
Memory Bounds
Optimal Algorithmic Approach

Binary search on the answer space.

Core Invariants & Edge Cases

  • Binary search the speed k in [1, max(piles)]
  • For a given k compute total hours = sum(ceil(pile/k))
  • If hours ≤ h, try lower speed; else try higher
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