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)
runtime:
Solution:
1. sort input number
2. fix the left-end number, go and find the rest two numbers which meet the requirement.
3. there some tips to accelerate the algorithm: such as: "
while( num1[pl] == num1[pl+1] ) { pl++; }
"
source code:
vector<vector<int> > threeSum(vector<int> &num) {
vector<int> num1(num);
vector<vector<int> > triplets;
sort(num1.begin(), num1.end());
if(num1.size() < 3 || num1[0] > 0 || num1[num1.size()-1] < 0)
return triplets;
int base = 0; // fix left-end number in every loop
//note: left-end number should not be bigger than zero
while(num1[base] <= 0) {
int pl = base+1;
int ph = num1.size()-1;
while( pl < ph ) {
int thrsum = num1[pl] + num1[ph] + num1[base];
if( thrsum < 0 ) { pl++; }
else if (thrsum >0 ) { ph--; }
else if( thrsum == 0 ) {
vector<int> tmp;
tmp.push_back(num1[base]);
tmp.push_back(num1[pl]);
tmp.push_back(num1[ph]);
// to avoid duplicate cases
if( triplets.size() > 0 &&
(triplets[triplets.size()-1] == tmp) )
{ pl++; continue; }
triplets.push_back(tmp);
// avoid some similar operations
while( num1[pl] == num1[pl+1] ) { pl++; }
pl++;
}
}
base++;
while(num1[base] == num1[base-1]) { base++; }
}
return triplets;
}