Task Scheduler in Java: Explanation & Practice

Problem summary

Given tasks and cooldown n, find minimum time to complete all tasks. Same tasks must have at least n intervals between them.

Starter code

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        char[] tasks = {'A','A','A','B','B','B'};
        int n = 2;
        
        // Greedy: schedule most frequent task first
        // Calculate idle slots needed
        // Print: Time: 8
    }
}

Expected output and test cases

• A B idle A B idle A B

  Time: 8

• n=0 → no cooldown needed

  Time: 6

• A A A B B B, n=3

  Time: 16

Hints

1. Count frequency of each task
2. Most frequent task determines minimum slots needed
3. Formula: (maxFreq - 1) * (n + 1) + numTasksWithMaxFreq
4. Answer is max of this formula and total tasks

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