[Leetcode] 506. Relative Ranks

Question

First thought, copy array -> sort array -> reverse sorted array -> nested loop, outer loop go through sorted array, inner loop go through original array and assign value to result when element found in the original array. Time complexity n^2.

Better way: sort index base on customized comparator.  Comparator is comparing value of the array.  Output of this step is a index array sorted based on the values.  2nd step is to fill the result.  Time complexity is nlogn constrained by the java sorting implementation.

public class Solution {
    public String[] findRelativeRanks(int[] nums) {
        if(nums == null || nums.length == 0){
            return null;
        }
        
        String[] result = new String[nums.length];
        Integer[] index = new Integer[nums.length];
        for(int i=0; i<index.length; i++){
            index[i] = i;
        }
        
        Arrays.sort(index, (a,b)->(nums[b] - nums[a]));
        
        for(int i=0; i<index.length; i++){
            if(i == 0){
                result[index[i]] = "Gold Medal";
            } else if(i == 1){
                result[index[i]] = "Silver Medal";
            } else if (i == 2){
                result[index[i]] = "Bronze Medal";
            } else{
                result[index[i]] = (i+1) + "";
            }
        }
        
        return result;
    }
}