3 Sum

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:

• Elements in a triplet (a,b,c) must be in non-descending order. (ie, a ≤ b ≤ c)
• 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)

10/31

Solution:

Sort the list, fix i and use two sum algorithm to search for start and end s.t.  num[i] + num[start] + num[end]  and i<start<end

public class Solution {
    public List<List<Integer>> threeSum(int[] num) {
        int len = num.length;
        List<List<Integer>> ans = new ArrayList<List<Integer>>();
        Arrays.sort(num);
        
        for(int i = 0; i<len-2; ){
            if(num[i] > 0)  break;
            int start = i+1, end = len-1;
            int target = 0-num[i];
            while(start < end){
                int sum = num[start] + num[end];
                if(sum == target){
                    List<Integer> row = new ArrayList<Integer>();
                    row.add(num[i]);
                    row.add(num[start]);
                    row.add(num[end]);
                    ans.add(row);
                    int tmp = num[start];
                    while(start < end && num[start] == tmp)    start++; // err1: check start<end
                    tmp = num[end];
                    while(start < end && num[end] == tmp)  end--;
                }else if(sum < target){
                    start++;
                }else{ //sum > target
                    end--;
                }
            }
            int tmp = num[i];
            while(i < len-2 && tmp == num[i])    i++; //err2: like start and end, needs to skip the duplicate i's
        }
        
        
        
        
        return ans;
        
    }
}

The time complexity:

• Sort: O(nlgn)
• run 2sum for n-2 times: O(n^2)

so time complexity is O(n^2)

The space complexity is O(1)