leetcode(164)：Maximum Gap

题目

164. Maximum Gap
     Hard
     Given an unsorted array, find the maximum difference between the successive elements in its sorted form.

Return 0 if the array contains less than 2 elements.

Example 1:

Input: [3,6,9,1]
Output: 3
Explanation: The sorted form of the array is [1,3,6,9], either
(3,6) or (6,9) has the maximum difference 3.
Example 2:

Input: [10]
Output: 0
Explanation: The array contains less than 2 elements, therefore return 0.
Note:

You may assume all elements in the array are non-negative integers and fit in the 32-bit signed integer range.
Try to solve it in linear time/space.

思路

因为追求线性复杂度，所以不可能用经典排序的算法，因此需要更巧妙地利用已知条件。 类似与抽屉原理。我们用O(n)预处理出数组的最大值maxn和最小值minn，那么最大的间距肯定在maxn-minn之间，有因为有n个数，所以每个数之间的平均距离为size=(maxn-minn)/n+1, 这是如果数组有序且元素都是等间距的时候的最大间距。因此我们一共要把数组按每个元素与最小值minn的间距大小分为(maxn-minn)/size+1个小组。每个组中保存组里面的最大值和最小值。那么对最后分到数的分组来说，整体的最大间距就是每个有效的分组的最小值减去前一个分组的最大值。

代码

class Solution {
public:
    int maximumGap(vector<int>& nums) {
        int n=nums.size();
        if(n<2)return 0;
        int ans=0;

        auto maxPosition = max_element(nums.begin(), nums.end());
        int maxn = *maxPosition;
        
	    auto minPosition = min_element(nums.begin(), nums.end());
        int minn = *minPosition;
        
        int sz=(maxn-minn)/n+1;
        int bucket_n=(maxn-minn)/sz+1;
        vector<int>bmin(bucket_n,maxn+1),bmax(bucket_n,minn-1);
        for(int i=0;i<n;i++)
        {
            int idx=(nums[i]-minn)/sz;
            bmin[idx]=min(bmin[idx],nums[i]);
            bmax[idx]=max(bmax[idx],nums[i]);
        }
        for(int i=0;i<bucket_n;i++)
        {
            while(bmax[i]==minn+1)i++;
            int j=i+1;
            if(j>=bucket_n)break;
            while(bmin[j]==maxn+1)j++;
            ans=max(ans,bmin[j]-bmax[i]);
            i=j-1;
        }
        return ans;
    }
};