Find Smallest Letter Greater than target -- 找到最小的字母稍微大过目标字母

在Leetcode上看到一道题目，觉得很有意思。就拿出来分享给大家。

题目：
Given a list of sorted characters letters containing only lowercase letters, and given a target letter target, find the smallest element in the list that is larger than the given target.

Letters also wrap around. For example, if the target is target = ‘z’ and letters = [‘a’, ‘b’], the answer is ‘a’.

Note:

1. Letters has a length in range [2, 10000]
2. Letters consists of lowercase letters, and contains at least 2 unique letters.
3. Target is a lowercase letter.

再给个例子：
Letters = [‘c’, ‘f’, ‘j’]
target = ‘a’
Output: ‘c’

因为是给的是有顺序的，所以就立刻想到一次遍历就行了。下面是 C 代码：

char nextGreatestLetter(char* letters, int lettersSize, char target) {
  int index;
  for(index; index < lettersSize; index++){
     if(letters[index] > target) {
       return letters[index];
     }
  }
  return letters[0];
} 

下面是Java 代码，也是一次遍历

class Solution {
  public char nextGreatestLetter(char[] letters, char target) {
     for(char result : letters){
        if(result > letters)
           return result;
     }
     return letters[0];
  }
}

虽然用一次遍历就可以算出来了，但是想另外一种方法。想了一会，就想到用二分法来解决这个问题。因为是给有顺序的字母序列。

下面就直接上 C 代码:

char nextGreatestLetter(char* letters, int lettersSize, char target) {
  int low = 0, high = lettersSize;
  while(low < high) {
    int middle = low + (high - low) / 2;
    if(letters[middle] <= target){
       low = middle + 1;
    } else {
       high = middle;
    }
  }
  return letters[low % lettersSize];
}

下面是Java 代码：

class Solution {
  public char nextGreatestLetter(char[] letters, char target) {
     int low = 0, high = letters.length;
     while(low < high) {
       int middle = low + (high - low) / 2;
       if(letters[middle] <= target) {
          low = middle + 1;
       } else {
          high = middle;
       }
     }
     return letters[low % letters.length];
  }
}

下面来解释代码的原理：
举例：Letters = [‘a’, ‘c’, ‘d’, ‘h’, ‘k’]
Target = ‘z’

第一步：
Low = 0, high = 5
middle = low + (high - low) / 2 = 0 + 5/2 = 2
Letters[middle] = ‘d’ <= ‘z’
low = middle + 1 = 2 + 1 = 3

第二步：
low = 3, high = 5
middle = low + (high - low)/2 = 3 +2/2 = 4
Letters[middle] = ‘k’ < ‘z’
low = middle + 1 = 4 + 1 = 5

第三步：
low = 5, high = 5
return letters[low % letters.length] = letters[5 % 5] = letters[0] = ‘a’

博主就不举其他例子了，反正原理就是定义两个变量，一个低位，一个高位来进行移位来判断。

如果哪里写的不对，各位就指出来哦！ 会虚心更改的！