题号：15 题目名：3Sum

题目

Given an array S of n integers, are there elements a, b, c in S such that a + b + c = 0? Find all unique triplets in the array which gives the sum of zero.

Note: The solution set must not contain duplicate triplets.

For example, given array S = [-1, 0, 1, 2, -1, -4],

A solution set is:
[
  [-1, 0, 1],
  [-1, -1, 2]
]

想法

The idea is to sort an input array and then run through all indices of a possible first element of a triplet. For each possible first element we make a standard bi-directional 2Sum sweep of the remaining part of the array. Also we want to skip equal elements to avoid duplicates in the answer without making a set or smth like that.

Code

public List<List<Integer>> threeSum(int[] num) {
    Arrays.sort(num);
    List<List<Integer>> res = new LinkedList<>(); 
    for (int i = 0; i < num.length-2; i++) {
        //重复数字跳过
        if (i == 0 || (i > 0 && num[i] != num[i-1])) {
            int lo = i+1, hi = num.length-1, sum = 0 - num[i];
            while (lo < hi) {
                if (num[lo] + num[hi] == sum) {
                    res.add(Arrays.asList(num[i], num[lo], num[hi]));
                    //重复数字跳过
                    while (lo < hi && num[lo] == num[lo+1]) lo++;
                    while (lo < hi && num[hi] == num[hi-1]) hi--;
                    lo++; hi--;
                } else if (num[lo] + num[hi] < sum) lo++;
                else hi--;
           }
        }
    }
    return res;
}

问题

1. 结果中不存在重复的triplets
2. 仔细看题目要求，分析样例，给定数组中存在重复元素，而且结果中也允许出现重复数字出现，但是不能出现重复组合
3. 主要问题就是解决重复问题，排序是一个很好策略，然后再计算结果时就避免出现重复的组合
4. 计算两数之和时，使用二分法，提升效率