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Challenge 19: Candlelight

curriculum/challenges/english/blocks/daily-coding-challenges-python/6821ebea237de8297eaee795.md

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--description--

Given an integer representing the number of candles you start with, and an integer representing how many burned candles it takes to create a new one, return the number of candles you will have used after creating and burning as many as you can.

For example, if given 7 candles and it takes 2 burned candles to make a new one:

  1. Burn 7 candles to get 7 leftovers,
  2. Recycle 6 leftovers into 3 new candles (1 leftover remains),
  3. Burn 3 candles to get 3 more leftovers (4 total),
  4. Recycle 4 leftovers into 2 new candles,
  5. Burn 2 candles to get 2 leftovers,
  6. Recycle 2 leftovers into 1 new candle,
  7. Burn 1 candle.

You will have burned 13 total candles in the example.

--hints--

burn_candles(7, 2) should return 13

js
({test: () => { runPython(`
from unittest import TestCase
TestCase().assertEqual(burn_candles(7, 2), 13)`)
}})

burn_candles(10, 5) should return 12

js
({test: () => { runPython(`
from unittest import TestCase
TestCase().assertEqual(burn_candles(10, 5), 12)`)
}})

burn_candles(20, 3) should return 29

js
({test: () => { runPython(`
from unittest import TestCase
TestCase().assertEqual(burn_candles(20, 3), 29)`)
}})

burn_candles(17, 4) should return 22

js
({test: () => { runPython(`
from unittest import TestCase
TestCase().assertEqual(burn_candles(17, 4), 22)`)
}})

burn_candles(2345, 3) should return 3517

js
({test: () => { runPython(`
from unittest import TestCase
TestCase().assertEqual(burn_candles(2345, 3), 3517)`)
}})

--seed--

--seed-contents--

py
def burn_candles(candles, leftovers_needed):

    return candles

--solutions--

py
def burn_candles(candles, leftovers_needed):
    total_burned = 0
    unused_leftovers = 0

    while candles > 0:
        total_burned += candles
        leftovers = candles + unused_leftovers
        candles = leftovers // leftovers_needed
        unused_leftovers = leftovers % leftovers_needed

    return total_burned