LeetCode - Maximum Product Subarray

1 minute read

Problem description

description

Given an integer array nums, find the contiguous subarray within an array (containing at least one number) which has the largest product.

Example 1:

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Input: [2,3,-2,4]
Output: 6
Explanation: [2,3] has the largest product 6.

Example 2:

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Input: [-2,0,-1]
Output: 0
Explanation: The result cannot be 2, because [-2,-1] is not a subarray.

Analysis

Note that the product would be always greater than the previous one only if it’s 0.

So we can use two variable, one store the max > 0, another stores the min <0. So than if we meet an negative value, we can use min * v to get a new max > 0.

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public int maxProduct(int[] nums) {
        if (nums == null){
            return 0;
        }
        
        int max = nums[0];
        int min = nums[0];
        int res = nums[0];
        
        for (int i = 1; i< nums.length; i++){
            int v = nums[i];
            int premax = max;
            
            max = Math.max(v, Math.max(max *v, min *v));
            min = Math.min(v, Math.min(premax *v, min * v));
            
            res = Math.max(res, max);
        }
        
        return res;
    }

What to improve

  • don’t think 2d DP at the first time. Find out if there’s any other simple solution.