Given an n-ary tree of integers, the task is to find the maximum sum of a subsequence with the constraint that no 2 numbers in the sequence should share a common edge in the tree. Example: 1 / \ 2 5 / \ 3 4 Maximum non adjacent sum = 3 + 4 + 5 = 12 The following is the faulty extension of the algorithm outlined in http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/maximum-sum-such-that-no-two-elements-are-adjacent?
def max_sum(node, inc_sum, exc_sum):
for child in node.children:
exc_new = max(inc_sum, exc_sum)
inc_sum = exc_sum + child.val
exc_sum = exc_new
inc_sum, exc_sum = max(max_sum(child, inc_sum, exc_sum),
max_sum(child, inc_sum, inc_sum - node.val))
return exc_sum, inc_sum
But I wasn't sure if swapping exc_sum and inc_sum while returning is the right way to achieve the result and how do I keep track of the possible sums which can lead to a maximum sum, in this example, the maximum sum in the left subtree is (1+3+4) whereas the sum which leads to the final maximum is (3+4+5), so how should (3+4) be tracked? Should all the intermediary sums stored in a table?