Given an array of size n, find the majority element. The majority element is the element that appears more than ⌊ n/2 ⌋
times.
You may assume that the array is non-empty and the majority element always exist in the array.
A rather straight forward method is to use hashmap. However, it is a waste of memory space.
This is actually a pretty famous algorithm called: MJRTY - A Fast Majority Vote Algorithm by Robet S. Boyer.
#include <vector>
#include <iostream>
#include <climits>
using namespace std;
int majorityElement(vector<int>& nums) {
int count = 0;
int target = INT_MAX;
int i = 0;
while(i < nums.size()) {
if(count == 0) {
target = nums[i];
count++;
} else if(nums[i] == target){
count++;
} else {
count--;
}
i++;
}
count = 0;
for(i = 0; i < nums.size(); ++i) {
if(nums[i] == target) count++;
}
if(count > nums.size() / 2) return target;
else return -1; // remember to verify, it maybe has no majority. For example [1, 1, 2, 2]
}
int main(void) {
vector<int> nums{1, 1, 2};
int target = majorityElement(nums);
cout << target << endl;
}