Problem 1: Thambi the Gold Speculator, (K Narayan Kumar, CMI)
Thambi read in the paper that the world economy was going through a volatile phase, one indication of which was the wild fluctuation in the price of gold. He thought that speculating on gold would be an excellent way to make money quickly. To limit his losses while he sharpened his skills, he decided to buy or sell only 1 gram each day, never holding on to more than 1 gram in stock. He believed that he could make a killing by buying a gram of gold whenever the price was low and selling it whenever the price was high.
Before entering the gold market, Thambi decided to examine to examine the variation in the price of gold over the last few days and determine the maximum profit he could have made.
Suppose, the price of 1 gram of gold varied over a period of 10 days as follows:
Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Price 113 71 102 93 130 145 101 153 122 101
His best strategy here is to buy on day 2, sell on day 3, buy on day 4, sell on day 6, buy on day 7, sell on day 8 for a total profit of (102-71) + (145-93) + (153-101) = 135.
You will be given the price of 1 gram of gold over a sequence of N days. Your task is to determine the maximum profit that Thambi can make by choosing appropriate days to buy and sell gold. Remember that he never holds more than 1 gram in stock and he always buys and sells at most 1 gram each day.
Input format
The first line of input is a single integer N, the number of days. The second line of input consists of N integers, representing the price of 1 gram of gold for days 1 to N.
Output format
Your output should be a single integer, the maximum profit that Thambi can make by judiciously buying and selling gold over N days.
Test data
You may assume that N ≤ 108.
Example
Here is the sample input and output corresponding to the example discussed above.
Sample input
10 113 71 102 93 130 145 101 153 122 101
Sample output
135