128. Longest Consecutive Sequence

Given an unsorted array of integers, find the length of the longest consecutive elements sequence.

For example,
Given [100, 4, 200, 1, 3, 2],
The longest consecutive elements sequence is [1, 2, 3, 4]. Return its length: 4.

Your algorithm should run in O(n) complexity.

The Union Find way:

We could use a hashmap to apply union find, once comes in a new number i , we connect i with (i - 1) and (i + 1) if they already exist in the union find. And we should always ensure that the root is the smallest number in the consecutive sequence.

Code:

public class Solution {
    public int longestConsecutive(int[] nums) {
        HashMap<Integer,Integer> uf = new HashMap();
        for(int i : nums){
            if(!uf.containsKey(i)){
                uf.put(i,i);
                if(uf.containsKey(i + 1)){
                    union(uf,i,i+1);
                }
                if(uf.containsKey(i - 1)){
                    union(uf,i-1,i);
                }
            }
        }
        int len = 0;
        for(int key : new HashSet<Integer>(uf.keySet())){
            int pre = findRoot(uf,key);
            len = Math.max((key - pre + 1), len);
        }
        return len;
        
    }
    
    int findRoot(HashMap<Integer,Integer> uf, int x){
        if(uf.containsKey(x)){
            if(uf.get(x) != x){
                int ans = findRoot(uf,uf.get(x));
                uf.put(x,ans);
                return ans;
            }
        }
        return x;
    }
    
    void union(HashMap<Integer,Integer> uf, int x, int y){
        int r1 = findRoot(uf,x);
        int r2 = findRoot(uf,y);
        if(r1 > r2){
            uf.put(r1,r2);
        } else {
            uf.put(r2,r1);
        }
    }
}

Another way to do it is to convert the array to a set, for each number i , if i is the start of the sequence( (i - 1) not in the set), count the length of the sequence starting at i, otherwise continue.

Code:

public class Solution {
    public int longestConsecutive(int[] nums) {
        HashSet<Integer> hs = new HashSet();
        for(int i : nums){
            hs.add(i);
        }
        int ret = 0;
        for(int i : hs){
            if(!hs.contains(i - 1)){
                int c = 0;
                while(hs.contains(i++)){
                    c++;
                }
                ret = Math.max(ret,c);
            }
            
        }
        return ret;
        
    }
}