LeetCode-744 Find Smallest Letter Greater Than Target

Description

Given a list of sorted characters letters containing only lowercase letters, and given a target letter target, find the smallest element in the list that is larger than the given target.

Letters also wrap around. For example, if the target is target = ‘z’ and letters = [‘a’, ‘b’], the answer is ‘a’.

Note:

1. letters has a length in range [2, 10000].
2. letters consists of lowercase letters, and contains at least 2 unique letters.
3. target is a lowercase letter.

Example

Input:
letters = [“c”, “f”, “j”]
target = “a”
Output: “c”

Input:
letters = [“c”, “f”, “j”]
target = “c”
Output: “f”

Input:
letters = [“c”, “f”, “j”]
target = “d”
Output: “f”

Input:
letters = [“c”, “f”, “j”]
target = “g”
Output: “j”

Input:
letters = [“c”, “f”, “j”]
target = “j”
Output: “c”

Input:
letters = [“c”, “f”, “j”]
target = “k”
Output: “c”

Submissions

解题思路利用二分法。题目要求返回列表中比目标字母大的最小字母，当letters[mid] <= target时，说明题目目标值在mid索引的右边，因此left更新为mid+1。否则，说明题目目标值在mid索引的左边，因此left更新为mid-1，需要注意mid-1索引上的数的值和target的大小，如果小于target的话就直接返回mid上的值。同时还要考虑到mid如果小于1时，就不存在mid-1，所以如果mid小于1，直接返回mid。
最后如果二分法查找完毕都没有题目目标值，则说明target比letters中的数都要大，按题目要求，返回第0个索引上的数。

并且在python3中需要注意，在mid = (left + right)//2中，‘//’代表向下取整，返回int型；‘/’代表精确除法，返回float型。

实现代码如下：

class Solution:
    def nextGreatestLetter(self, letters: List[str], target: str) -> str:
        left, right = 0, len(letters)-1
        while left <= right:
            mid = (left + right)//2
            if letters[mid] <= target:
                left = mid + 1
            else:                
                if mid < 1 or (mid >= 1 and letters[mid-1]<= target):
                    return letters[mid]
                right = mid - 1
        return letters[0]