LeetCode 18 4Sum

Given an array S of n integers, are there elements a, b, c, and d in S such that a + b + c + d = target? Find all unique quadruplets in the array which gives the sum of target.

Note:

• Elements in a quadruplet (a,b,c,d) must be in non-descending order. (ie, a ≤ b ≤ c ≤ d)
• The solution set must not contain duplicate quadruplets.

    For example, given array S = {1 0 -1 0 -2 2}, and target = 0.

    A solution set is:
    (-1,  0, 0, 1)
    (-2, -1, 1, 2)
    (-2,  0, 0, 2)

	public List<List<Integer>> fourSum(int[] nums, int target) {
		List<List<Integer>> result = new LinkedList<List<Integer>>();
		int len = nums.length;
		Arrays.sort(nums);
		for (int k = 0; k < len - 3; k++) {
			if (k > 0 && nums[k] == nums[k - 1]) continue;
			for (int i = k + 1; i < len - 2; i++) {
				if (i != k + 1 && nums[i] == nums[i - 1]) continue;
				int left = i + 1, right = len - 1;
				while (left < right) {
					int sum = nums[k] + nums[i] + nums[left] + nums[right];
					if (sum == target) {
						List<Integer> list = new ArrayList<Integer>();
						list.add(nums[k]);
						list.add(nums[i]);
						list.add(nums[left]);
						list.add(nums[right]);
						result.add(list);
						/**去掉重复的数据,并且继续收缩找中间的数据*/
						while (left++ < right && nums[left] == nums[left - 1]) ;
						while (left < --right && nums[right] == nums[right + 1]) ;
					} else if (sum < target)
						left++;//数据小,继续找后边大的数据.
					else right--;//数据大,继续找前边小的数据.
				}
			}
		}
		return result;
	}

No, you can't. If you're interested, here is a paper that proves a lower bound of Ω(n^ceil(k/2)) for the k-SUM problem (deciding whether k numbers out of n sums to 0) where ceil is the ceiling function. Here k=3, so you cannot do better than Ω(n^2).

Fun fact, there exist better quantum algorithms. The quantum complexity of k-SUM is Θ(n^(k/(k+1)) which is sub-linear! How cool is that? (Here is the paper describing the algorithm, and here the proof of optimality

my-solution-generalized-for-ksums-in-java

java-backtracking-solution-for-k-sum-beat-94