42. Trapping Rain Water

Given n non-negative integers representing an elevation map where the width of each bar is 1, compute how much water it is able to trap after raining.

For example,
Given [0,1,0,2,1,0,1,3,2,1,2,1], return 6.

The above elevation map is represented by array [0,1,0,2,1,0,1,3,2,1,2,1]. In this case, 6 units of rain water (blue section) are being trapped. Thanks Marcos for contributing this image!

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Solution:

Tips:

find the max value in array, then from left to right and right to left scan the array calculating the area. such as stairs.

Java Code:

public class Solution {
    public int trap(int[] height) {
        if (height == null || height.length <= 1) {
            return 0;
        }
        // find the max number
        int maxIdx = 0;
        int maxVal = height[0];
        for (int i = 1; i < height.length; i++)  {
            if (maxVal < height[i]) {
                maxVal = height[i];
                maxIdx = i;
            }
        }
        
        int area = 0;
        int h = height[0];
        // from left to right
        for (int i = 1; i < maxIdx; i++) {
            if (height[i] < h) {
                area += h - height[i];
            } else {
                h = height[i];
            }
        }
        
        // from right to left
        int idx = height.length - 1;
        h = height[idx];
        for (int i = idx; i > maxIdx; i--) {
            if (height[i] < h) {
                area += h - height[i];
            } else {
                h = height[i];
            }
        }
        
        return area;
    }
}