leetcode - 735. Asteroid Collision

Description

We are given an array asteroids of integers representing asteroids in a row.

For each asteroid, the absolute value represents its size, and the sign represents its direction (positive meaning right, negative meaning left). Each asteroid moves at the same speed.

Find out the state of the asteroids after all collisions. If two asteroids meet, the smaller one will explode. If both are the same size, both will explode. Two asteroids moving in the same direction will never meet.

Example 1:

Input: asteroids = [5,10,-5]
Output: [5,10]
Explanation: The 10 and -5 collide resulting in 10. The 5 and 10 never collide.

Example 2:

Input: asteroids = [8,-8]
Output: []
Explanation: The 8 and -8 collide exploding each other.

Example 3:

Input: asteroids = [10,2,-5]
Output: [10]
Explanation: The 2 and -5 collide resulting in -5. The 10 and -5 collide resulting in 10.

Constraints:

2 <= asteroids.length <= 10^4
-1000 <= asteroids[i] <= 1000
asteroids[i] != 0

Solution

Recursive

Every time, find the positive that has a negative at the right, and then collide, then recursively solve the rest of the list.
Time complexity: $o(n^2)$
Space complexity: $o(n)$

Stack

We sweep from the left to the right, if the asteroid is positive, nothing will happen, just append it into the stack. And if it’s negative, we will NOT append it to the stack when the top element of the stack is positive and the absolute value is smaller than the current one. If it’s this condition, then we keep popping from the stack.

Then we decide if we need to append the current negative asteroid or not, if the top element is of the same absolute value with the negative one, then we don’t need to append it at all, instead we need to pop the top element. Otherwise we need to append it.

Time complexity: $o(n)$
Space complexity: $o(n)$

Code

Recursive

class Solution:
    def asteroidCollision(self, asteroids: List[int]) -> List[int]:
        # find collisions
        i = 1
        while i < len(asteroids):
            if asteroids[i - 1] > 0 and asteroids[i] < 0:
                break
            i += 1
        if i >= len(asteroids):
            return asteroids
        if asteroids[i - 1] + asteroids[i] > 0:
            return self.asteroidCollision(asteroids[:i] + asteroids[i+1:])
        elif asteroids[i - 1] + asteroids[i] < 0:
            return self.asteroidCollision(asteroids[:i-1] + asteroids[i:])
        else:
            return self.asteroidCollision(asteroids[:i-1] + asteroids[i+1:])

Stack

class Solution:
    def asteroidCollision(self, asteroids: List[int]) -> List[int]:
        mono_stack = []
        for each_a in asteroids:
            if each_a > 0:
                mono_stack.append(each_a)
            else:
                while mono_stack and mono_stack[-1] > 0 and mono_stack[-1] + each_a < 0:
                    mono_stack.pop()
                if not mono_stack or mono_stack[-1] < 0:
                    mono_stack.append(each_a)
                elif mono_stack[-1] + each_a == 0:
                    mono_stack.pop()
        return mono_stack