SantaGifts | Topcoder Archive

Problem Statement

Santa Claus has come with a bag full of presents this year. A group of N kids stand in line, anxious to get their gifts. Santa Claus takes a present from his bag and gives it to the kid who is currently first in line. That kid then goes to the end of the line, unless he already has 4 gifts, in which case, he goes home. This process continues as long as there are presents in the bag and kids in the line.

You are given a String[] gifts containing the presents in Santa's bag, in the order they are given away. Return a String[] containing exactly N elements, where the k-th element is a single space separated list of presents received by the k-th kid, in the order he received them. Kid 0 is the first kid in the initial lineup, kid 1 is the second kid, etc.

Definition

Class:: SantaGifts
Method:: distribute
Parameters:: String[], int
Returns:: String[]
Method signature:: String[] distribute(String[] gifts, int N)
(be sure your method is public)

Constraints

gifts will contain between 1 and 50 elements, inclusive.
Each element of gifts will contain between 1 and 10 lowercase letters ('a'-'z'), inclusive.
N will be between 1 and 50, inclusive.

Examples

```
{"ball","plane","robot","puzzle"}
```
```
3
```
```
Returns: {"ball puzzle", "plane", "robot" }
```
The first kid gets a ball, the second one a plane, and the third one a robot. Then the first kid reaches the front of the line again and gets the last gift.

{"ball","plane","robot","puzzle","bike"}

Returns: {"ball plane robot puzzle" }

There is only one kid, so he will take the first four presents.

```
{"ball","ball","plane","plane"}
```
```
2
```
```
Returns: {"ball plane", "ball plane" }
```
In this case Santa Claus is fair and gives a ball and a plane to both kids.

{"ball","plane","robot"}

Returns: {"ball", "plane", "robot", "", "" }

Unfortunately, not all the kids will get gifts.

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