Connecting Ropes with Minimum Cost

You are given 'N' ropes, each of varying lengths. The task is to connect all ropes into one single rope. The cost of connecting two ropes is the sum of their lengths. Your objective is to find the minimum cost required to connect all the ropes together.

Input:

The first line contains an integer 'N', representing the total number of ropes. The second line contains 'N' space-separated integers where each integer denotes the length of a rope.

Output:

An integer representing the minimum cost required to connect all the ropes.

Example:

Input: N = 4 Lengths = 4 3 2 6

Output:

29

Explanation:

Start by connecting ropes of lengths 2 and 3; cost = 5. Then connect rope of length 5 with rope of length 4; cost = 9. Finally, connect the resulting rope of length 9 with rope of length 6; cost = 15. Total cost = 5 + 9 + 15 = 29.

Constraints:

1

Question

Connecting Ropes with Minimum Cost

You are given 'N' ropes, each of varying lengths. The task is to connect all ropes into one single rope. The cost of connecting two ropes is the sum of their lengths. Your objective is to find the minimum cost required to connect all the ropes together.

Input:

The first line contains an integer 'N', representing the total number of ropes. The second line contains 'N' space-separated integers where each integer denotes the length of a rope.

Output:

An integer representing the minimum cost required to connect all the ropes.

Example:

Input:
N = 4
Lengths = 4 3 2 6

Output:

Explanation:

Start by connecting ropes of lengths 2 and 3; cost = 5. Then connect rope of length 5 with rope of length 4; cost = 9. Finally, connect the resulting rope of length 9 with rope of length 6; cost = 15. Total cost = 5 + 9 + 15 = 29.

Constraints:

1 <= N <= 10^5
1 <= a_i <= 10^9
Time Limit: 1 second

Accepted Answer

The problem is to connect N ropes of different lengths into one rope with minimum cost.

Sort the array of rope lengths in ascending order.
Initialize a variable to keep track of the total cost.
While there are more than one rope remaining, take the two shortest ropes and connect them.
Add the cost of connecting the two ropes to the total cost.
Replace the two shortest ropes with the connected rope.
Repeat the above steps until only one rope remains.
Return the total cost.