Problem M
Obstacle Course
As a businessman and parkour enthusiast, Morgan owns an obstacle course consisting of N road segments
numbered from 1 to N . These road segments are arranged sequentially such that road 1 is adjacent to road
2, road 2 is adjacent to road 3, ..., road N − 1 is adjacent to road N . Currently, each odd-numbered road
segment has a height of a positive integer Ai , and each even-numbered road segment has a height of 0. In
Morgan’s course, anyone can start from any road segment, parkour towards one direction, and stop at any
road segment as long as they can reach that road segment.
As a beginner athlete, Adrian thinks that Morgan’s obstacle course may be too hard due to the height dif-
ference between any two consecutive roads. Adrian enjoys doing parkour whenever the height difference
between two consecutive roads is exactly 1. If the next road segment has a difference of more than 1 from
the current road segment, then Adrian cannot climb or jump down to the next road segment and will stop
his parkour activity. On the other hand, if the next road segment has the same height as the current road
segment, then Adrian will lose interest and stop his parkour activity. He will also stop his parkour activity if
he reaches the end of the obstacle course, i.e. road segment N or road segment 1.
As his friend, Morgan wants Adrian to be happy with the course. Adrian’s happiness is defined as the number
of road segments that he parkoured before he lost interest and stops his parkour activity. Adrian will start
from any road segment that will give him the largest happiness. Based on these facts, Morgan decided
to change the heights of some (possibly none) even-numbered road segments such that Adrian’s largest
happiness for the course is maximized. However, before he makes any changes, he asked you to determine
the largest possible Adrian’s happiness that can be obtained after changing the height.
For example, let A1..9 = [6, 0, 4, 0, 8, 0, 12, 0, 14]. By changing A into [6, 5, 4, 5, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14], Adrian can do
parkour from segment 1 to 4 or from segment 6 to 9, and his happiness will be 4, which is also the largest
happiness after that change. There are some other changes that can make Adrian’s largest happiness equal
to 4 as well, e.g. [6, 5, 4, 3, 8, 7, 12, 12, 14], but no change can make Adrian’s largest happiness larger than 4.
Help Morgan to determine the largest possible Adrian’s happiness in his new course.
Input
Input begins with an integer N (2 ≤ N ≤ 100 000) representing the number of road segments. The next line
contains N integers Ai (Ai = 0 if i is even; 1 ≤ Ai ≤ 100 000 if i is odd) representing the height of segment
i from 1 to N respectively.
Output
Output an integer in a single line that represents the largest possible Adrian’s happiness in Morgan’s new
course.
ICPC INC 2022 Problem M. Obstacle Course
Sample Input #1
9
6 0 4 0 8 0 12 0 14
Sample Output #1
4
Explanation for the sample input/output #1
This is the example from the problem description.
Sample Input #2
7
3 0 5 0 5 0 7
Sample Output #2
7
Explanation for the sample input/output #2
By changing A to [3, 4, 5, 6, 5, 6, 7] Adrian’s happiness will be 7.
Sample Input #3
6
6 0 2 0 8 0
Sample Output #3
3
Sample Input #4
7
4 0 6 0 10 0 9
Sample Output #4
4
ICPC INC 2022 Problem M. Obstacle Course
