703907. Maximum weight difference
Here is a detailed Markdown blog post for the "Maximum weight difference" problem:
Maximum Weight Difference
Summary
The problem involves finding the maximum absolute difference between weights in an array. The key concepts involved are arrays and data structures, specifically searching and sorting algorithms.
Detailed Explanation
To solve this problem, we can use a simple algorithm that iterates through the array once. We keep track of the minimum and maximum weight encountered so far. For each element in the array, we update these values as needed to ensure that maxWeight - minWeight always represents the maximum absolute difference between weights.
Here is the step-by-step breakdown:
- Initialize two variables:
minWeightto store the smallest weight andmaxWeightto store the largest weight. - Iterate through the array:
- For each element, update
minWeightif the current element is smaller than the previous minimum. - Update
maxWeightif the current element is larger than the previous maximum.
- For each element, update
- Return
maxWeight - minWeightas the result.
Time complexity: O(n), where n is the length of the array. We only need to iterate through the array once, so the time complexity is linear.
Space complexity: O(1). We only use a constant amount of space to store the minimum and maximum weights, regardless of the size of the input array.
Optimized Solutions
Java
public int maxWeightDifference(int[] weights) {
int minWeight = Integer.MAX_VALUE;
int maxWeight = Integer.MIN_VALUE;
for (int weight : weights) {
if (weight < minWeight) {
minWeight = weight;
} else if (weight > maxWeight) {
maxWeight = weight;
}
}
return Math.abs(maxWeight - minWeight);
}