Find K-th Smallest Pair Distance：查找数组元素中差值第K大的两个元素的差值

Given an integer array, return the k-th smallest distance among all the pairs. The distance of a pair (A, B) is defined as the absolute difference between A and B.

Example 1:

Input:
nums = [1,3,1]
k = 1
Output: 0 
Explanation:
Here are all the pairs:
(1,3) -> 2
(1,1) -> 0
(3,1) -> 2
Then the 1st smallest distance pair is (1,1), and its distance is 0.

Note:

1. 2 <= len(nums) <= 10000.
2. 0 <= nums[i] < 1000000.
3. 1 <= k <= len(nums) * (len(nums) - 1) / 2.

思路：二分查找+滑动窗口思想，很巧妙的一道题。最后二分查找注释的位置困扰了我好久。

class Solution {
   public int smallestDistancePair(int[] nums, int k) {
       Arrays.sort(nums);
       
       int l =0;
       int h =nums[nums.length-1]-nums[0];
       while(l<h){//二分查找，因为当count==k时，搜索到的m差值可能并不存在，需要继续循环判断，直到范围确定           
           int m = (l + h)/2;          
           //search
           //使用窗口思想，判断差值<=k的个数，r-l即表示[l,r]间间隔<m的个数（每确定一个窗口就新增加了（r-l+1）- 1个差值对）
           int left = 0;
           int count = 0;
           for(int right = 0;right<nums.length;right++){
               while(nums[right] - nums[left]>m){
                   left++;
               }
               count+= right-left;
           }
           /*注意，下面这种写法是错误的，因为比如l=3，r=4，m=(3+4)/2 = 3(因为是向下取整)，所以此次迭代有可能l=m后，l=3，r=4陷入死循环！
           if(count<=k){
               l = m ;
           }else{
               h = m-1;
           }
           */
           
           if(count>=k){
               h = m ;
           }else{
               l = m+1;
           }          
       }
        return l;
    }
}

复杂度：

Complexity Analysis

• Time Complexity: $O(N\log W+N\log N)$, where $N$ is the length of nums, and $W$ is equal to nums[nums.length - 1] - nums[0]. The $\log W$ factor comes from our binary search, and we do $O(N)$ work inside our call to possible (or to calculate count in Java). The final $O(N\log N)$ factor comes from sorting.

• Space Complexity: $O(1)$. No additional space is used except for integer variables.