LintCode 1379: The Longest Scene (Interval 合并题)

1379. The Longest Scene
      A string, each character representing a scene. Between two identical characters is considered to be a continuous scene. For example: abcda, you can think of these five characters as the same scene. Or acafghbeb can think of two aca and beb scenes. If there is a coincidence between the scenes, then the scenes are combined. For example, abcab, where abca and bcab are coincident, then the five characters are considered to be the same scene. Give a string to find the longest scene.

Example
Given str = “abcda”, return 5.

Explanation:
The longest scene is “abcda”.
Given str = “abcab”, return 5.

Explanation:
The longest scene is “abcab”.
Notice
1 <= |str| <=1e5
str contains only lowercase letters

这题的思路就是对26个字母找出其出现最早和最晚的位置，然后对其排序(按出现最早的位置），然后合并Intervals，找出最大值。
注意:

1. 对pair的排序默认按first来。
2. 声明2维vector，第一维size=26,第2维不定

        vector<vector<int>> vecs(26, vector<int>());

代码如下：

class Solution {
public:
    /**
     * @param str: The scene string
     * @return: Return the length longest scene
     */
    int getLongestScene(string &str) {
        int strLen = str.size();
        if (strLen == 0) return 0;
        int result;
        vector<vector<int>> vecs(26, vector<int>());
        
        //pre-processing
        for (int i = 0; i < strLen; ++i) {
            int letterIndex = str[i] - 'a';
            vecs[letterIndex].push_back(i);
        }
        
        //pair<int, int> wholeIntervals[26];
        vector<pair<int, int>> wholeIntervals(26);
        
        for (int i = 0; i < 26; ++i) {
            if (vecs[i].size() > 0) {
                wholeIntervals[i].first = vecs[i][0];
                wholeIntervals[i].second = vecs[i][vecs[i].size() - 1];
            }
        }
        
        sort(wholeIntervals.begin(), wholeIntervals.end());
        
        int currIntervalSize = wholeIntervals[0].second - wholeIntervals[0].first;
        int currIntervalBegPos = wholeIntervals[0].first;
        int currIntervalEndPos = wholeIntervals[0].second;
        
        int maxIntervalSize = wholeIntervals[0].second - wholeIntervals[0].first;
        
        for (int i = 1; i < 26; ++i) {

            if (wholeIntervals[i].first <= currIntervalEndPos) {
                currIntervalSize = wholeIntervals[i].second - currIntervalBegPos;
                currIntervalEndPos = wholeIntervals[i].second; 
            } else {
                currIntervalSize = wholeIntervals[i].second - wholeIntervals[i].first;
                currIntervalBegPos = wholeIntervals[i].first;
                currIntervalEndPos = wholeIntervals[i].second;
            }
            
            maxIntervalSize = max(maxIntervalSize, currIntervalSize);
        }

        return maxIntervalSize + 1;
    }
};