Leetcode•May 05, 2025
Gas Station
Hazrat Ali
Leetcode
There are n
gas stations along a circular route, where the amount of gas at the ith
station is gas[i]
.
You have a car with an unlimited gas tank and it costs cost[i]
of gas to travel from the ith
station to its next (i + 1)th
station. You begin the journey with an empty tank at one of the gas stations.
Given two integer arrays gas
and cost
, return the starting gas station's index if you can travel around the circuit once in the clockwise direction, otherwise return -1
. If there exists a solution, it is guaranteed to be unique.
Example 1:
Input: gas = [1,2,3,4,5], cost = [3,4,5,1,2] Output: 3 Explanation: Start at station 3 (index 3) and fill up with 4 unit of gas. Your tank = 0 + 4 = 4 Travel to station 4. Your tank = 4 - 1 + 5 = 8 Travel to station 0. Your tank = 8 - 2 + 1 = 7 Travel to station 1. Your tank = 7 - 3 + 2 = 6 Travel to station 2. Your tank = 6 - 4 + 3 = 5 Travel to station 3. The cost is 5. Your gas is just enough to travel back to station 3. Therefore, return 3 as the starting index.
Example 2:
Input: gas = [2,3,4], cost = [3,4,3] Output: -1 Explanation: You can't start at station 0 or 1, as there is not enough gas to travel to the next station. Let's start at station 2 and fill up with 4 unit of gas. Your tank = 0 + 4 = 4 Travel to station 0. Your tank = 4 - 3 + 2 = 3 Travel to station 1. Your tank = 3 - 3 + 3 = 3 You cannot travel back to station 2, as it requires 4 unit of gas but you only have 3. Therefore, you can't travel around the circuit once no matter where you start.
Solution
/**
* @param {number[]} gas
* @param {number[]} cost
* @return {number}
*/
const canCompleteCircuit = (gas, cost) => {
let start = 0;
let tank = 0;
let total = 0;
for (let i = 0; i < gas.length; i++) {
const diff = gas[i] - cost[i];
tank += diff;
total += diff;
if (tank < 0) {
tank = 0;
start = i + 1;
}
}
return total >= 0 ? start : -1;
};