LeetCode 2459: Sort Array by Moving Items to Empty Space Solution

Master LeetCode problem 2459 (Sort Array by Moving Items to Empty Space), a hard challenge, with our optimized solutions in Java, C++, and Python. Explore detailed explanations, test your code in our interactive editor, and prepare for coding interviews.

2459. Sort Array by Moving Items to Empty Space

Hard

Array Greedy Sorting

Problem Explanation

Explanation

Given an array of integers where one or more elements are missing and replaced with a special value -1, the task is to sort the array by moving the items to the empty spaces. The empty space is represented by -1, and the relative order of the elements should be preserved.

To achieve this, we can utilize a modified version of the insertion sort algorithm. We can iterate over the array, moving each element to its correct position by shifting the other elements accordingly. Since the array might contain empty spaces represented by -1, we need to handle this special case separately.

Solution Code

class Solution {
    public void sortArray(int[] nums) {
        int n = nums.length;
        
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
            if (nums[i] == -1) {
                int j = i - 1;
                while (j >= 0 && nums[j] == -1) {
                    j--;
                }
                if (j >= 0) {
                    int temp = nums[j];
                    nums[j] = -1;
                    nums[i] = temp;
                }
            } else {
                int j = i - 1;
                int emptyCount = 0;
                while (j >= 0) {
                    if (nums[j] == -1) {
                        emptyCount++;
                    } else if (nums[j] > nums[i]) {
                        int temp = nums[j];
                        nums[j] = nums[i];
                        nums[i] = temp;
                        i = j;
                    }
                    j--;
                }
                if (emptyCount > 0) {
                    nums[i - emptyCount] = -1;
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

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