Maximum subarray problem

Kadane's algorithm

Kadane's algorithm consists of a scan through the array values, computing at each position the maximum (positive sum) subarray ending at that position. This subarray is either empty (in which case its sum is zero) or consists of one more element than the maximum subarray ending at the previous position. Thus, the problem can be solved with the following code, expressed here in Python:

def max_subarray(A):
    max_ending_here = max_so_far = 0
    for x in A:
        max_ending_here = max(0, max_ending_here + x)
        max_so_far = max(max_so_far, max_ending_here)
    return max_so_far

A variation of the problem that does not allow zero-length subarrays to be returned in the case that the entire array consists of negative numbers can be solved with the following code:

def max_subarray(A):
    max_ending_here = max_so_far = A[0]
    for x in A[1:]:
        max_ending_here = max(x, max_ending_here + x)
        max_so_far = max(max_so_far, max_ending_here)
    return max_so_far