135. Candy

There are n children standing in a line. Each child is assigned a rating value given in the integer array ratings.

You are giving candies to these children subjected to the following requirements:

  • Each child must have at least one candy.
  • Children with a higher rating get more candies than their neighbors. Return the minimum number of candies you need to have to distribute the candies to the children.
def candy(self, ratings: List[int]) -> int: 
    N = len(ratings) 
        
    leftArray = [1] * N 
        
    for i in range(1, N): 
        if ratings[i] > ratings[i - 1]: 
            leftArray[i] = leftArray[i - 1] + 1 
        
    for i in range(N - 2, -1, -1): 
        if ratings[i] > ratings[i + 1]: 
            leftArray[i] = max(leftArray[i], leftArray[i + 1] + 1) 
                
    return sum(leftArray)