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Grokking the Coding Interview Patterns in C++

Solution: Minimum Moves to Spread Stones Over Grid

Explore the technique of backtracking to solve the problem of evenly distributing stones on a 3x3 grid. Learn how to identify empty and extra stone cells, use recursive trials to find the minimum moves, and apply Manhattan distance in this combinatorial challenge.

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Statement

Given a 2D grid of integers of size (3×33 \times 3), where each value represents the number of stones in the given cell, return the minimum number of moves required to place exactly one stone in each grid cell.

Constraints:

  • Only one stone can be moved in one move.

  • Stone from a cell can only be moved to another cell if they are adjacent (share a side).

  • The sum of all stones in the grid must be equal to 99.

  • grid.length, grid[i].length ...