LeetCode 11. Container With Most Water (Medium)

Description:

Given n non-negative integers a1, a2, …, an , where each represents a point at coordinate (i, ai). n vertical lines are drawn such that the two endpoints of line i is at (i, ai) and (i, 0). Find two lines, which together with x-axis forms a container, such that the container contains the most water.

Note: You may not slant the container and n is at least 2.

The above vertical lines are represented by array [1,8,6,2,5,4,8,3,7]. In this case, the max area of water (blue section) the container can contain is 49.

Example:

Input: [1,8,6,2,5,4,8,3,7]
Output: 49

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Analysis:

1. Use two pointers to solve this problem. Initially, make the first pointer point to the first line and the second pointer point to the last line.
2. Here we use $left$ to denote the first pointer and $right$ to denote the second pointer.
   A r e a = ( r i g h t − l e f t ) ∗ m i n { h e i g h t [ l e f t ] , h e i g h t [ r i g h t ] } Area = (right - left) * _{min}\{height[left], height[right]\} Area=(right−left)∗min​{height[left],height[right]}
3. Each time, move the pointer pointing to the shorter line toward the pointer pointing to the longer line in order to find out a longer line that can replace the shorter line.

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Code:

class Solution {
    public int maxArea(int[] height) {
        int left = 0, right = height.length-1;
        int maxArea = 0;
        while(left < right) {
            maxArea = Math.max(maxArea, (right-left) * Math.min(height[left], height[right]));
            if(height[left] < height[right]) {
                left++;
            }else {
                right--;
            }
        }
        return maxArea;
    }
}