Problem:
Score : 300 points

Problem Statement

You are given an array A of length N.
Your task is to divide it into several contiguous subarrays.
Here, all subarrays obtained must be sorted in either non-decreasing or non-increasing order.
At least how many subarrays do you need to divide A into?

Constraints

1 \leq N \leq 10^5

1 \leq A_i \leq 10^9

Each A_i is an integer.

Input

Input is given from Standard Input in the following format:

N
A_1 A_2 ... A_N

Output

Print the minimum possible number of subarrays after division of A.

Sample Input 1

6
1 2 3 2 2 1

Sample Output 1

2

One optimal solution is to divide the array into [1,2,3] and [2,2,1].

Sample Input 2

9
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1

Sample Output 2

5

Sample Input 3

7
1 2 3 2 1 999999999 1000000000

Sample Output 3

3

Solution in Python (3.8.2) (judge verdict: Accepted)

import sys

N=int(input())
A=list(map(int,input().split()))
div_flg=False
inc_flg=False
dec_flg=False
ans=0

if N==1:
  print(1)
  sys.exit()
  
for i in range(N):
  if inc_flg:
    if i==N-1:
      break
    if A[i]<=A[i+1]:
      continue
    else:
      inc_flg=False
      div_flg=False
  elif dec_flg:
    if i==N-1:
      break
    if A[i]>=A[i+1]:
      continue
    else:
      dec_flg=False
      div_flg=False
  else:
    if i==0:
      ans+=1
      div_flg=True
    elif i==N-1:
      if not div_flg:
        ans+=1
      break
    if A[i]==A[i+1]:
      if not div_flg:
        ans+=1
      div_flg=True
      continue
    elif A[i]<A[i+1]:
      if not div_flg:
        ans+=1
      inc_flg=True
      continue
    elif A[i]>A[i+1]:
      if not div_flg:
        ans+=1
      dec_flg=True
      continue
print(ans)