LongestSequence | Topcoder Archive

Problem Statement

Your task is to find the length of the longest sequence of real numbers that satisfies some conditions.

You are given a int[] C. Each element of C corresponds to one condition.
If C[i] is negative, the condition is: "The sum of every consecutive -C[i] terms must be negative."
If C[i] is positive, the condition is: "The sum of every consecutive C[i] terms must be positive."

You should return the maximal length of a sequence that satisfies all the conditions. If there exists an infinitely long sequence that satisfies all the conditions, return -1.

Definition

Class:: LongestSequence
Method:: maxLength
Parameters:: int[]
Returns:: int
Method signature:: int maxLength(int[] C)
(be sure your method is public)

Constraints

C will contain between 1 and 50 elements, inclusive.
Each element in C will be between -1,000 and 1,000, inclusive.
All elements in C will be pairwise distinct.
No element in C will be 0.

Examples

```
{-2,3}
```
```
Returns: 3
```
The sequence {2, -3, 2} satisfies all the conditions and its length is 3. It can be proved that there is no valid sequence with more terms.
```
{524}
```
```
Returns: -1
```
Any infinite sequence in which all elements are positive satisfies all the conditions.
```
{1, -1}
```
```
Returns: 0
```
No sequence with positive length can satisfy both conditions.
```
{11,-7}
```
```
Returns: 16
```
```
{-227,690,590,-524}
```
```
Returns: 713
```

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