LeetCode 4Sum

Description:

Given an array S of n integers, are there elements a, b, c, and d in S such that a + b + c + d = target? Find all unique quadruplets in the array which gives the sum of target.

Solution:

This is the same as 3Sum. We can list sort all the numbers, then we go through all the first two integers. For the third and fourth integers, we can scan the array from two side of the remaining numbers.

In addition, for each answer, we use a HashSet to guarantee that they appear only once.

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.LinkedList;
import java.util.List;

public class Solution {
	public List<List<Integer>> fourSum(int[] nums, int target) {
		Arrays.sort(nums);
		int a, b, l, r;
		List<List<Integer>> list = new ArrayList<List<Integer>>();
		HashSet<List<Integer>> set = new HashSet<List<Integer>>();
		for (int i = 0; i < nums.length - 3; i++) {
			a = nums[i];
			for (int j = i + 1; j < nums.length - 2; j++) {
				b = nums[j];
				l = j + 1;
				r = nums.length - 1;
				while (l < r) {
					if (a + b + nums[l] + nums[r] == target) {
						ArrayList<Integer> array = new ArrayList<Integer>();
						array.add(a);
						array.add(b);
						array.add(nums[l]);
						array.add(nums[r]);
						if (!set.contains(array)) {
							list.add(array);
							set.add(array);
						}

						l++;
						r--;
					} else if (a + b + nums[l] + nums[r] < target) {
						l++;
					} else {
						r--;
					}
				}
			}
		}
		return list;
	}
}