Minimum Cost to Reduce Array Problem Statement
You are given an array ARR
containing N
positive integers. Your task is to reduce the size of this array to 1 by repetitively merging adjacent elements. Each time you merge two adjacent elements, the cost incurred will be equal to their sum. Find the minimum total cost to reduce the array to a single element by performing these operations.
Explanation:
In a single merge operation, adjacent elements are removed, and their sum is inserted in their place, reducing the array size by one. Only N-1
merge operations are needed for an array of size N
.
Input:
The first line contains an integer T
representing the number of test cases. For each test case, the first line contains an integer N
, the size of the array. The second line contains N
space-separated integers representing the array elements.
Output:
For each test case, output a single integer representing the minimum cost of merging the entire array.
Example:
Input:
2
4
1 2 3 4
3
10 20 30
Output:
19
60
Constraints:
1 ≤ T ≤ 50
1 ≤ N ≤ 100
1 ≤ ARR[i] ≤ 10^6
- Time Limit: 1 sec
Note:
The aim is to minimize the total cost of merging by strategically choosing which pairs to merge at each step.
Find the minimum cost to reduce an array to a single element by merging adjacent elements with their sum.
Iteratively merge adjacent elements to minimize total cost
Choose pairs to merge strategically t...read more
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