[leetcode]628. Maximum Product of Three Numbers

题目链接：https://leetcode.com/problems/maximum-product-of-three-numbers/#/description

Given an integer array, find three numbers whose product is maximum and output the maximum product.

Example 1:

Input: [1,2,3]
Output: 6

Example 2:

Input: [1,2,3,4]
Output: 24

Note:

1. The length of the given array will be in range [3,104] and all elements are in the range [-1000, 1000].
2. Multiplication of any three numbers in the input won't exceed the range of 32-bit signed integer.

方法一：

The first solution could be to sort the given $nums$ array(in ascending order) and find out the product of the last three numbers. But, we can note that this product will be maximum only if all the numbers in $nums$ array are positive. But, in the given problem statement, negative elements could exist as well. Thus, it could also be possible that two negative numbers lying at the left extreme end could also contribute to lead to a larger product if the third number in the triplet being considered is the largest positive number in the $nums$ array. Thus, either the product $nums[0]$x$nums[1]$x$nums[n-1]$ or $nums[n-3]$x$nums[n-2]$x$nums[n-1]$ will give the required result. Thus, we need to find the larger one from out of these values.

class Solution {
public:
    int maximumProduct(vector<int>& nums) {
        sort(nums.begin(),nums.end());
        int res=max(nums[0]*nums[1]*nums[nums.size()-1],nums[nums.size()-3]*nums[nums.size()-2]*nums[nums.size()-1]);
        return res;
    }
};

方法二：

We need not necessarily sort the given $nums$ array to find the maximum product. Instead, we can only find the required 2 smallest values($min1$ and $min2$) and the three largest values($max1,max2,max3$) in the $nums$ array, by iterating over the $nums$ array only once. At the end, again we can find out the larger value out of $min1$x$min2$x$max1$ and $max1$x$max2$x$max3$ to find the required maximum product.

class Solution {
public:
    int maximumProduct(vector<int>& nums) {
        int min1=INT32_MAX,min2=INT32_MAX;
        int max1=INT32_MIN,max2=INT32_MIN,max3=INT32_MIN;
        for(auto n:nums)
        {
            if(n<=min1)
            {
                min2=min1;
                min1=n;
            }
            else if(n<=min2)
            {
                min2=n;
            }
            if(n>=max1)
            {
                max3=max2;
                max2=max1;
                max1=n;
            }
            else if(n>=max2)
            {
                max3=max2;
                max2=n;
            }
            else if(n>=max3)
            {
                max3=n;
            }
        }
        return max(min1*min2*max1,max1*max2*max3);
    }
};