LeetCode 697. Degree of an Array

Given a non-empty array of non-negative integers nums, the degree of this array is defined as the maximum frequency of any one of its elements.

Your task is to find the smallest possible length of a (contiguous) subarray of nums, that has the same degree as nums.

Example 1:

Input: nums = [1,2,2,3,1]
Output: 2
Explanation: 
The input array has a degree of 2 because both elements 1 and 2 appear twice.
Of the subarrays that have the same degree:
[1, 2, 2, 3, 1], [1, 2, 2, 3], [2, 2, 3, 1], [1, 2, 2], [2, 2, 3], [2, 2]
The shortest length is 2. So return 2.

Example 2:

Input: nums = [1,2,2,3,1,4,2]
Output: 6
Explanation: 
The degree is 3 because the element 2 is repeated 3 times.
So [2,2,3,1,4,2] is the shortest subarray, therefore returning 6.

Constraints:

• nums.length will be between 1 and 50,000.
• nums[i] will be an integer between 0 and 49,999.

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题目定义了degree of an array是这个array里出现次数最多的数字的出现次数，要求返回这个数组里子数组with the same degree的最小长度，本质上就是求这个数组里出现次数最多的数字，第一次出现和最后一次出现的index之差的最小值。非常直观的解法就是用两个hashmap分别记录出现的次数和第一次和最后一次出现的index，然后再遍历一遍这个index的hashmap求第一次和最后一次出现的最小值。这里需要两个for loop，看了discussion有人用一个for loop就做好了，就是在一边遍历求count时，一边就在update这个degree和最小的长度。这道题意义不是太大。

class Solution {
    public int findShortestSubArray(int[] nums) {
        Map<Integer, Integer> count = new HashMap<>();
        Map<Integer, Integer> start = new HashMap<>();
        int degree = 0;
        int result = 0;
        for (int i = 0; i < nums.length; i++) {
            count.put(nums[i], count.getOrDefault(nums[i], 0) + 1);
            if (!start.containsKey(nums[i])) {
                start.put(nums[i], i);
            }
            // if current count > degree, need to update degree and result
            if (count.get(nums[i]) > degree) {
                degree = count.get(nums[i]);
                result = i - start.get(nums[i]) + 1;
            } else if (count.get(nums[i]) == degree) {
                result = Math.min(result, i - start.get(nums[i]) + 1);
            }
        }
        return result;
    }
}