[leetcode] 11. Container With Most Water

Description

Given n non-negative integers a1, a2, …, an , where each represents a point at coordinate (i, ai). n vertical lines are drawn such that the two endpoints of line i is at (i, ai) and (i, 0). Find two lines, which together with x-axis forms a container, such that the container contains the most water.

Note: You may not slant the container and n is at least 2.

The above vertical lines are represented by array [1,8,6,2,5,4,8,3,7]. In this case, the max area of water (blue section) the container can contain is 49.

Example:
Input: [1,8,6,2,5,4,8,3,7]
Output: 49

Analysis

先把两条最远的线设为i和j，分别是i=0，j=height.size()-1。这两条线距离最远，也就是说这个矩形的长最长。而矩形的高是由i和j两条线的height中最短的那条决定的，即min(height[i],height[j])。然后把i和j往里推。
由于初始的这两条线已经是矩形的长的极限了，所以如果再把两条线往里推，矩形的长一定会减小。因此关键在于找到比当前的i或j更长的线，才有可能使矩阵的面积更大。
代码有两种写法，一个是找出h=min(height[i],height[j])，然后将之后遍历到的height小于等于h的都过滤掉，直到到达一条线的height>h，此时才可能得到更大面积，然后比较此时的面积与最大面积。
另一种方法是将更短的那条线继续遍历，因为短边才能决定盛水的多少。在每次遍历的时候计算矩形面积，并比较大小。

Code

第一种方法：

class Solution {
public:
    int maxArea(vector<int>& height) {
        int water = 0;
        int i = 0;
        int j = height.size()-1;
        int h = 0;
        
        while(i<j){
            h = min(height[i], height[j]);
            water = max(water, h*(j-i));
            
            while(height[i]<=h && i<j){
                i++;
            }
            while(height[j]<=h && i<j){
                j--;
            }
        }
        return water;
    }
};

第二种方法：

class Solution {
public:
    int maxArea(vector<int>& height) {
        int water = 0;
        int i = 0;
        int j = height.size()-1;
        int h = 0;
        
        while(i<j){
            water = max(water, min(height[i], height[j])*(j-i));
            if(height[i]<height[j])
                i++;
            else
                j--;
        }
        return water;
    }
};