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81. Search in Rotated Sorted Array II

Problem

There is an integer array nums sorted in non-decreasing order (not necessarily with distinct values).

Before being passed to your function, nums is rotated at an unknown pivot index k (0 <= k < nums.length) such that the resulting array is [nums[k], nums[k+1], ..., nums[n-1], nums[0], nums[1], ..., nums[k-1]] (0-indexed). For example, [0,1,2,4,4,4,5,6,6,7] might be rotated at pivot index 5 and become [4,5,6,6,7,0,1,2,4,4].

Given the array nums after the rotation and an integer target, return true if target is in nums, or false if it is not in nums.

You must decrease the overall operation steps as much as possible.

Example 1:

Input: nums = [2,5,6,0,0,1,2], target = 0
Output: true

Example 2:

Input: nums = [2,5,6,0,0,1,2], target = 3
Output: false

Constraints:

  • 1 <= nums.length <= 5000
  • -104 <= nums[i] <= 104
  • nums is guaranteed to be rotated at some pivot.
  • -104 <= target <= 104

Follow up: This problem is similar to 33. Search in Rotated Sorted Array, but nums may contain duplicates. Would this affect the runtime complexity? How and why?

Solve

O(n)

Some conclusion

While there is a lot of similarity from 33. Search in Rotated Sorted Array . The main breaking point is that we can’t effectively find the shift point as if nums[mid] == nums[0], it could either be left, or right because of duplication. Both example could be:

-  L     M     R
- [2, 0, 2, 2, 2]
- [2, 2, 2, 0, 2]

So to preventing this, we should at least remove duplication on either end, here is a snippet code that I try to clear the duplicate on nums array left side:

        for i in range(n-1,-1,-1):
            if nums[i] == nums[0]:
                continue
            self.nums = nums[:i+1]
            n = len(self.nums)
            break
        if n == 0:
            return False

Final code should be the same as 33. Search in Rotated Sorted Array

class Solution:
    def findShiftPoint(self):
        shiftPoint = -1
        isFound = False

        pointerLeftIndex = 0
        pointerRightIndex = len(self.nums)

        while True:
            midIndex = (pointerLeftIndex + pointerRightIndex) // 2
            if pointerLeftIndex == midIndex:
                break

            if self.nums[midIndex] >= self.nums[0]:
                pointerLeftIndex = midIndex
            else:
                pointerRightIndex = midIndex

        if pointerLeftIndex+1 == pointerRightIndex:
            shiftPoint = len(self.nums)-1 - pointerLeftIndex
            isFound = True
        return (shiftPoint, isFound)

    def binarySearch(self, startIndex,endIndex, target):
        targetIndex, isFound = -1, False
        left = startIndex-1
        right = endIndex +1

        while True:
            midIndex = (left + right) // 2
            if left == midIndex:
                break 

            if self.nums[midIndex] <= target:
                left = midIndex
            else:
                right = midIndex

        if left+1 == right:
            targetIndex = left
            if startIndex <= targetIndex <= endIndex:
                isFound = self.nums[targetIndex] == target
        return (targetIndex, isFound)

    def search(self, nums: List[int], target: int) -> int:
        self.nums = nums
        n = len(nums)
        self.target = target
        for i in range(n-1,-1,-1):
            if nums[i] == nums[0]:
                continue
            self.nums = nums[:i+1]
            n = len(self.nums)
            break
        if n == 0:
            return False
        result = -1

        shiftPoint, isFound = self.findShiftPoint()

        targetIndex, isFound = self.binarySearch(0, n- shiftPoint -1, target)
        if isFound:
            return True
        targetIndex, isFound = self.binarySearch(n- shiftPoint,n-1, target)
        if isFound:
            return True

        return False

Time complexity: Worst case O(n)

  • As we need to remove duplicate on left/right side, which in theory can be the whole array, costing O(n) time
  • Other binary finding cost O(log n)

Last update : September 17, 2023
Created : August 16, 2023