2846. Minimum Edge Weight Equilibrium Queries in a Tree ¶

Problem

There is an undirected tree with n nodes labeled from 0 to n - 1. You are given the integer n and a 2D integer array edges of length n - 1, where edges[i] = [u_i, v_i, w_i] indicates that there is an edge between nodes u_i and v_i with weight w_i in the tree.

You are also given a 2D integer array queries of length m, where queries[i] = [a_i, b_i]. For each query, find the minimum number of operations required to make the weight of every edge on the path from a_i to b_i equal. In one operation, you can choose any edge of the tree and change its weight to any value.

Note that:

Queries are independent of each other, meaning that the tree returns to its initial state on each new query.
The path from a_i to b_i is a sequence of distinct nodes starting with node a_i and ending with node b_i such that every two adjacent nodes in the sequence share an edge in the tree.

Return an array answer of length m where answer[i] is the answer to the i^th query.

Example 1:

Input: n = 7, edges = [[0,1,1],[1,2,1],[2,3,1],[3,4,2],[4,5,2],[5,6,2]], queries = [[0,3],[3,6],[2,6],[0,6]]
Output: [0,0,1,3]
Explanation: In the first query, all the edges in the path from 0 to 3 have a weight of 1. Hence, the answer is 0.
In the second query, all the edges in the path from 3 to 6 have a weight of 2. Hence, the answer is 0.
In the third query, we change the weight of edge [2,3] to 2. After this operation, all the edges in the path from 2 to 6 have a weight of 2. Hence, the answer is 1.
In the fourth query, we change the weights of edges [0,1], [1,2] and [2,3] to 2. After these operations, all the edges in the path from 0 to 6 have a weight of 2. Hence, the answer is 3.
For each queries[i], it can be shown that answer[i] is the minimum number of operations needed to equalize all the edge weights in the path from a_i to b_i.

Example 2:

Input: n = 8, edges = [[1,2,6],[1,3,4],[2,4,6],[2,5,3],[3,6,6],[3,0,8],[7,0,2]], queries = [[4,6],[0,4],[6,5],[7,4]]
Output: [1,2,2,3]
Explanation: In the first query, we change the weight of edge [1,3] to 6. After this operation, all the edges in the path from 4 to 6 have a weight of 6. Hence, the answer is 1.
In the second query, we change the weight of edges [0,3] and [3,1] to 6. After these operations, all the edges in the path from 0 to 4 have a weight of 6. Hence, the answer is 2.
In the third query, we change the weight of edges [1,3] and [5,2] to 6. After these operations, all the edges in the path from 6 to 5 have a weight of 6. Hence, the answer is 2.
In the fourth query, we change the weights of edges [0,7], [0,3] and [1,3] to 6. After these operations, all the edges in the path from 7 to 4 have a weight of 6. Hence, the answer is 3.
For each queries[i], it can be shown that answer[i] is the minimum number of operations needed to equalize all the edge weights in the path from a_i to b_i.

Constraints:

1 <= n <= 10⁴
edges.length == n - 1
edges[i].length == 3
0 <= u_i, v_i < n
1 <= w_i <= 26
The input is generated such that edges represents a valid tree.
1 <= queries.length == m <= 2 * 10⁴
queries[i].length == 2
0 <= a_i, b_i < n