Suppose there are n number of full water bottles, we can exchange m empty water bottles for only one full water bottle. Now drinking a full water bottle makes it an empty bottle. We have to find the maximum number of water bottles we can drink.
So, if the input is like n = 9, m = 3, then the output will be 13 because initially we have 9 bottles, so after drinking all bottles, we can get 9/3 = 3 full bottles, after drinking them all we have three empty bottles and using them we can buy one and drink it, so we completed 9 + 3 + 1 = 13 bottles.
To solve this, we will follow these steps −
x:= n, s:= 0, k:= 0
while x >= m, do
k:= x mod m
x:= quotient of x / m
s:= s + x
x:= x + k
return n + s
Example (Python)
Let us see the following implementation to get better understanding −
def solve(n, m): x=n s=0 k=0 while x >= m: k=x % m x=x // m s=s + x x=x + k return n + s n = 9 m = 3 print(solve(n, m))
Input
9, 3
Output
13