leetcode Maximum Gap

题目

Given an unsorted array, find the maximum difference between the successive elements in its sorted form.

Try to solve it in linear time/space.

Return 0 if the array contains less than 2 elements.

You may assume all elements in the array are non-negative integers and fit in the 32-bit signed integer range.
题目来源：https://leetcode.com/problems/maximum-gap/

分析

一个没有排序的数组，返回排好序后的相邻之间元素的最大间隔。
苦思冥想想不出来，参考了一下网上的的做法（参考链接），自己慢慢消化吧。使用若干个桶存放所有元素，使得最大的gap位于两个桶之间（前面桶的最小值和随后桶的最大值之差）。这样的话，桶的数目该是多少位宜呢？平均分割元素区间（max_elm - min_elm），每个区间的大小是一个avg_gap。这样的话，如果所有元素平均分布，则每个桶里一个元素，退化为排序。如果不平均分布，则必然有的桶为空，有的桶里面的元素多于1个。最大的gap也就不可能出现在一个桶里面，求不同桶之间的gap就行了。

代码

class Solution {
public:
    int maximumGap(vector<int>& nums) {
        int len = nums.size();
        if(len < 2)
            return 0;
        //find max element
        int max_num = *max_element(nums.begin(), nums.end());
        //find min element
        int min_num = *min_element(nums.begin(), nums.end());
        //average gap, ceil(0.3) = 1
        int avg_gap = ceil((double)(max_num - min_num)/(len - 1));
        int bucket_num = ceil((double)(max_num - min_num) / avg_gap);
        //buckets.first is max element in this bucket, initialized by the min integer(0x80000000)
        //buckets.second is min element in this bucket, initialized by the max integer(0x7fffffff)
        vector<pair<int, int> >buckets(bucket_num, make_pair(0x80000000, 0x7fffffff));
        for(auto val : nums){
            if(val == max_num || val == min_num)
                continue;
            int i = (val - min_num) / avg_gap;//find the correct bucket
            if(val > buckets[i].first)
                buckets[i].first = val;
            if(val < buckets[i].second)
                buckets[i].second = val;
        }
        int max_gap = 0;
        int last_max = min_num;
        for(auto bucket : buckets){
            if(bucket.first == 0x80000000)//empty bucket
                continue;
            int cur_max = bucket.first;
            int cur_min = bucket.second;
            max_gap = max(max_gap, cur_min - last_max);
            last_max = cur_max;
        }
        max_gap = max(max_gap, max_num - last_max);
        return max_gap;
    }
};