Leetcode - 84 - Largest Rectangle in Histogram (hard)

Given n non-negative integers representing the histogram's bar height where the width of each bar is 1, find the area of largest rectangle in the histogram.

Solutions:

The key idea of the problem is that

for each column i,

maxS = height[i]* max_width

where max_width = right_bound - left_bound - 1

(right_bound = the first j that satisfy height[j] < height[i] && j > i )

(left_bound = the first k that satisfy height[k] < height[i] && i > k )

 

(1)

Java:

public static int largestRectangleArea(int[] height) {
    if (height == null || height.length == 0) {
        return 0;
    }
    int[] lessFromLeft = new int[height.length]; // idx of the first bar the left that is lower than current
    int[] lessFromRight = new int[height.length]; // idx of the first bar the right that is lower than current
    lessFromRight[height.length - 1] = height.length;
    lessFromLeft[0] = -1;

    for (int i = 1; i < height.length; i++) {
        int p = i - 1;

        while (p >= 0 && height[p] >= height[i]) {
            p = lessFromLeft[p];
        }
        lessFromLeft[i] = p;
    }

    for (int i = height.length - 2; i >= 0; i--) {
        int p = i + 1;

        while (p < height.length && height[p] >= height[i]) {
            p = lessFromRight[p];
        }
        lessFromRight[i] = p;
    }

    int maxArea = 0;
    for (int i = 0; i < height.length; i++) {
        maxArea = Math.max(maxArea, height[i] * (lessFromRight[i] - lessFromLeft[i] - 1));
    }

    return maxArea;
}

// https://leetcode.com/problems/largest-rectangle-in-histogram/discuss/28902/5ms-O(n)-Java-solution-explained-(beats-96)

 

(2) Stack

use a stack maintaining the ascending height, so that when the new column i has height[i] lower than the top element in the stack, i is the right bound and the element next to the top (second top) is the left bound. 

Python2:

take advatage of list[-1] to get the rear element in python,

for i=0, its lessFromLeft is -1, so that stack is initiated as [-1]

def largestRectangleArea(self, height):
    height.append(0)
    stack = [-1]
    ans = 0
    for i in xrange(len(height)):
        while height[i] < height[stack[-1]]:
            h = height[stack.pop()]
            w = i - stack[-1] - 1
            ans = max(ans, h * w)
        stack.append(i)
    height.pop()
    return ans

# https://leetcode.com/problems/largest-rectangle-in-histogram/discuss/28917/AC-Python-clean-solution-using-stack-76ms

 

Java:

when i=len, h=0, which will serve for the condition when elements are in ascending order and some of the elements are same, like [1,1,8,8]

for s.isEmpty(), push directly, which is different from the previous python version

 public int largestRectangleArea(int[] heights) {
        int len = heights.length;
        Stack<Integer> s = new Stack<>();
        int maxArea = 0;
        for (int i = 0; i <= len; i++){
            int h = (i == len ? 0 : heights[i]);
            if (s.isEmpty() || h >= heights[s.peek()]) {
                s.push(i);
            } else {
                int tp = s.pop();
                maxArea = Math.max(maxArea, heights[tp] * (s.isEmpty() ? i : i - 1 - s.peek()));
                i--;
            }
        }
        return maxArea;
    }

// https://leetcode.com/problems/largest-rectangle-in-histogram/discuss/28900/Short-and-Clean-O(n)-stack-based-JAVA-solution