Minimum Knight Moves
Understand and solve the interview question "Minimum Knight Moves".
We'll cover the following
Description
We have an infinite chessboard with coordinates starting from -infinity
to infinity
. Our knight
starts in square (0, 0)
.
The knight has eight
possible moves at a given time. It can move in an L-shape
, meaning it can move two squares in any direction vertically and then one square horizontally or two squares in any direction horizontally and then one square vertically.
You need to find the minimum moves the knight needs to get from the origin (0,0)
to the coordinates (x,y)
. We will assume that the provided coordinates are always reachable and the constraint |x| + |y| <= 300
holds.
For example, given the input coordinate, (5, 5)
you have to find the minimum number of moves required for the knight to get from the origin
to the coordinate. In this case, the program will output four
because the knight needs four
moves to get to the coordinate.
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