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Competitive Programming

ICPC 2018 - F. Go with the Flow

State the problem in your own words. Focus on the mathematical or algorithmic core rather than repeating the full statement.

Source sync Apr 19, 2026
Track ICPC
Year 2018
Files TeX, C++, statement assets
Folder competitive_programming/icpc/2018/F-go-with-the-flow
ICPC2018TeXC++statement textstatement pdf

Source-first archive entry

This page is built from the copied files in competitive_programming/icpc/2018/F-go-with-the-flow. Edit competitive_programming/icpc/2018/F-go-with-the-flow/solution.tex to update the written solution and competitive_programming/icpc/2018/F-go-with-the-flow/solution.cpp to update the implementation.

The website does not replace those files with hand-maintained HTML. It reads the copied source tree during the build and exposes the exact files below.

Problem Statement

Copied statement text kept beside the solution archive for direct reference.

Problem F
                                       Go with the Flow
                                    Time limit: 12 seconds
In typesetting, a “river” is a string of spaces formed by gaps between words that extends down sev-
eral lines of text. For instance, Figure F.1 shows several examples of rivers highlighted in red (text is
intentionally blurred to make the rivers more visible).

                              Figure F.1: Examples of rivers in typeset text.

Celebrated river authority Flo Ng wants her new book on rivers of the world to include the longest
typographic rivers possible. She plans to set the text in a mono-spaced font (all letters and spaces have
equal width) in a left-aligned column of some fixed width, with exactly one space separating words on
each line (the text is not aligned on the right). For Flo, a “river” is defined as a sequence of spaces lying
in consecutive lines in which the position of each space in the sequence (except the first) differs by at
most 1 from the position of the space in the line above it. Trailing white space cannot appear in a river.
Words must be packed as tightly as possible on lines; no words may be split across lines. The line width
used must be at least as long as the longest word in the text. For instance, Figure F.2 shows the same
text set with two different line widths.

                 Line width 14: River of length 4      Line width 15: River of length 5
                 The Yangtze is|                       The Yangtze is |
                 the third          |                  the third           |
                 longest river |                       longest*river |
                 in*Asia and        |                  in Asia*and the|
                 the*longest in|                       longest*in the |
                 the*world to |                        world to*flow |
                 flow*entirely |                       entirely*in one|
                 in one country|                       country             |

                       Figure F.2: Longest rivers (*) for two different line widths.

Given a text, you have been tasked with determining the line width that produces the longest river of
spaces for that text.

Input

The first line of input contains an integer n (2 ≤ n ≤ 2 500) specifying the number of words in the
text. The following lines of input contain the words of text. Each word consists only of lowercase and
uppercase letters, and words on the same line are separated by a single space. No word exceeds 80
characters.

Output

Display the line width for which the input text contains the longest possible river, followed by the length
of the longest river. If more than one line width yields this maximum, display the shortest such line
width.

 Sample Input 1                                       Sample Output 1
 21                                                   15 5
 The Yangtze is the third longest
 river in Asia and the longest in
 the world to flow
 entirely in one country

 Sample Input 2                                       Sample Output 2
 25                                                   21 6
 When two or more rivers meet at
 a confluence other than the sea
 the resulting merged river takes
 the name of one of those rivers

Editorial

Rendered from the copied solution.tex file. The original TeX source remains available below.

Key Observations

  • Write the structural observations that make the problem tractable.

  • State any useful invariant, monotonicity property, graph interpretation, or combinatorial reformulation.

  • If the constraints matter, explain exactly which part of the solution they enable.

Algorithm

  1. Describe the data structures and the state maintained by the algorithm.

  2. Explain the processing order and why it is sufficient.

  3. Mention corner cases explicitly if they affect the implementation.

Correctness Proof

We prove that the algorithm returns the correct answer.

Lemma 1.

State the first key claim.

Proof.

Provide a concise proof.

Lemma 2.

State the next claim if needed.

Proof.

Provide a concise proof.

Theorem.

The algorithm outputs the correct answer for every valid input.

Proof.

Combine the lemmas and finish the argument.

Complexity Analysis

State the running time and memory usage in terms of the input size.

Implementation Notes

  • Mention any non-obvious implementation detail that is easy to get wrong.

  • Mention numeric limits, indexing conventions, or tie-breaking rules if relevant.

Code

Exact copied C++ implementation from solution.cpp.

C++ competitive_programming/icpc/2018/F-go-with-the-flow/solution.cpp

Exact copied implementation source.

Raw file
#include <bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;

namespace {

void solve() {
    // Fill in the full solution logic for the problem here.
}

}  // namespace

int main() {
    ios::sync_with_stdio(false);
    cin.tie(nullptr);

    solve();
    return 0;
}

Source Files

Exact copied source-of-truth files. Edit solution.tex for the write-up and solution.cpp for the implementation.

TeX write-up competitive_programming/icpc/2018/F-go-with-the-flow/solution.tex

Exact copied write-up source.

Raw file
\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{amsmath,amssymb,amsthm}
\usepackage{enumitem}

\title{ICPC World Finals 2018\\F. Go with the Flow}
\author{}
\date{}

\begin{document}
\maketitle

\section*{Problem Summary}

State the problem in your own words. Focus on the mathematical or algorithmic core rather than repeating the full statement.

\section*{Key Observations}

\begin{itemize}[leftmargin=*]
    \item Write the structural observations that make the problem tractable.
    \item State any useful invariant, monotonicity property, graph interpretation, or combinatorial reformulation.
    \item If the constraints matter, explain exactly which part of the solution they enable.
\end{itemize}

\section*{Algorithm}

\begin{enumerate}[leftmargin=*]
    \item Describe the data structures and the state maintained by the algorithm.
    \item Explain the processing order and why it is sufficient.
    \item Mention corner cases explicitly if they affect the implementation.
\end{enumerate}

\section*{Correctness Proof}

We prove that the algorithm returns the correct answer.

\paragraph{Lemma 1.}
State the first key claim.

\paragraph{Proof.}
Provide a concise proof.

\paragraph{Lemma 2.}
State the next claim if needed.

\paragraph{Proof.}
Provide a concise proof.

\paragraph{Theorem.}
The algorithm outputs the correct answer for every valid input.

\paragraph{Proof.}
Combine the lemmas and finish the argument.

\section*{Complexity Analysis}

State the running time and memory usage in terms of the input size.

\section*{Implementation Notes}

\begin{itemize}[leftmargin=*]
    \item Mention any non-obvious implementation detail that is easy to get wrong.
    \item Mention numeric limits, indexing conventions, or tie-breaking rules if relevant.
\end{itemize}

\end{document}