LintCode_124 Longest Consecutive Sequence

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

Clarification

Your algorithm should run in O(n) complexity.

Example

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

如果用排序算法，果断超时；

思路是这样的：对于每一个数，先左找连续的数，再右找连续的数， 然后把长度加起来。

查找是用的hash_map来实现。

但是此种方法会退化成O(n^2);

优化一下发现；对于先处理的4来说， 3，2，1都是同一个序列，所以不用重复计算，所以要把查找过的都删除。

class Solution {
public:
    /**
     * @param nums: A list of integers
     * @return an integer
     */
    int longestConsecutive(vector<int> &nums) {
        // write you code here
        unordered_set<int> set;
        for (int i = 0; i < nums.size(); i++) {
            set.insert(nums[i]);
        }
        int max_len = 0;
        for (int i = 0; i < nums.size(); i++) {
            int left_len = 0;
            int right_len = 0;
            int mid = nums[i];
            while (set.find(mid - 1) != set.end()) {
                left_len++;
                mid--;
                set.erase(mid);
            }
            mid = nums[i];
            while (set.find(mid + 1) != set.end()) {
                right_len++;
                mid++;
                set.erase(mid);
            }
            max_len = max(max_len, left_len + 1 + right_len);
        }
        return max_len;
    }
};