All challenges
Hard 0 solved 0% acceptance

Cut a Rectangle Into Squares

Find the fewest straight cuts needed to produce only squares.

Problem

On each move, choose one rectangle and cut all the way across it, parallel to a side, making two rectangles with positive integer side lengths. Continue until every piece is a square. Squares may have different sizes. Count cuts, not pieces.

Implement rectangle_cutting(height, width).

Input

height: The starting rectangle height.

width: The starting rectangle width.

Output

Return the minimum number of cuts.

Constraints

1 ≤ height, width ≤ 500. Rotation does not change the answer.

Examples

Example 1
Input:
width = 3
height = 2

Expected output:
expected = 2
Input:
long long width = 3;
long long height = 2;

Expected output:
long long expected = 2;
Input:
long width = 3;
long height = 2;

Expected output:
long expected = 2;

Explanation

Cut off a 2 × 2 square, leaving a 2 × 1 rectangle. One more cut splits the remainder into two unit squares.

Example 2
Input:
width = 4
height = 4

Expected output:
expected = 0
Input:
long long width = 4;
long long height = 4;

Expected output:
long long expected = 0;
Input:
long width = 4;
long height = 4;

Expected output:
long expected = 0;

Explanation

The starting rectangle is already a square.

References

This challenge is adapted for CodeUtility. Follow the statement and constraints above.

Learn from others

Community solutions

No published solutions yet. Solve this challenge to share the first one.