Given an integer array, find three numbers whose product is maximum and output the maximum product.
Example 1:
Input: [1,2,3]
Output: 6
Example 2:
Input: [1,2,3,4]
Output: 24
思路:为了找找到最大的乘积,我们需要在遍历数组的同时maintain三个可能乘出最大数的数字,那么真的只要maintian三个就可以吗?由于数组中可能会出现负数,因此我们真正需要maintian的是5个数字,max, mid, min, smallest1, smallest2, 然后最后的最大乘积会在max*mid*min和max*smallest1*smallest2中选取最大值,因此,搞清楚了这个,我们只需要在遍历的过程中对于新来的元素分类讨论即可。代码如下:
public int maximumProduct(int[] nums) {
//special case
if (nums == null || nums.length < 3) return 0;
if (nums.length == 3) return nums[0] * nums[1] * nums[2];
//base case
int[] base = new int[3];
for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
base[i] = nums[i];
}
Arrays.sort(base);
//general case
//注意这里s1和s2的初始化为一开始的两个最小值,因为也许一开始出现的两个数就一直是整个数组里的最小的两个负数。
int min = base[0], mid = base[1], max = base[2], s1 = base[0], s2 = base[1];
for (int i = 3; i < nums.length; i++) {
int num = nums[i];
if (num > max) {
min = mid;
mid = max;
max = num;
} else if (num > mid) {
min = mid;
mid = num;
} else if (num > min) {
min = num;
} else if (num < s1) {
s2 = s1;
s1 = num;
} else if (num < s2) {
s2 = num;
} else {
continue;
}
}
return Math.max(max * mid * min, max * s1 * s2);
}