LeetCode //C - 695. Max Area of Island

695. Max Area of Island

You are given an m x n binary matrix grid. An island is a group of 1’s (representing land) connected 4-directionally (horizontal or vertical.) You may assume all four edges of the grid are surrounded by water.

The area of an island is the number of cells with a value 1 in the island.

Return the maximum area of an island in grid. If there is no island, return 0.
 

Example 1:

Input: grid = [[0,0,1,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0],[0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,0,0,0],[0,1,1,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0],[0,1,0,0,1,1,0,0,1,0,1,0,0],[0,1,0,0,1,1,0,0,1,1,1,0,0],[0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0],[0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,0,0,0],[0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,0,0,0,0]]
Output: 6
Explanation: The answer is not 11, because the island must be connected 4-directionally.

Example 2:

Input: grid = [[0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0]]
Output: 0

Constraints:

• m == grid.length
• n == grid[i].length
• 1 <= m, n <= 50
• grid[i][j] is either 0 or 1.

From: LeetCode
Link: 695. Max Area of Island

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Solution:

Ideas:

• dfs() recursively explores 4 directions (up, down, left, right) and counts the area.

• We mark each visited cell by setting it to 0.

• In maxAreaOfIsland(), we scan each cell and call dfs() whenever we find a 1.

• We track the maximum area found.

Code:

int dfs(int** grid, int gridSize, int* gridColSize, int i, int j) {
    if (i < 0 || i >= gridSize || j < 0 || j >= gridColSize[i] || grid[i][j] == 0)
        return 0;
    
    grid[i][j] = 0; // Mark as visited by setting to 0
    int area = 1;
    
    area += dfs(grid, gridSize, gridColSize, i + 1, j); // down
    area += dfs(grid, gridSize, gridColSize, i - 1, j); // up
    area += dfs(grid, gridSize, gridColSize, i, j + 1); // right
    area += dfs(grid, gridSize, gridColSize, i, j - 1); // left
    
    return area;
}

int maxAreaOfIsland(int** grid, int gridSize, int* gridColSize) {
    int maxArea = 0;
    
    for (int i = 0; i < gridSize; i++) {
        for (int j = 0; j < gridColSize[i]; j++) {
            if (grid[i][j] == 1) {
                int area = dfs(grid, gridSize, gridColSize, i, j);
                if (area > maxArea) {
                    maxArea = area;
                }
            }
        }
    }
    
    return maxArea;
}