Leetcode - Container With Most Water

Leetcode : Container With Most Water

Description

Given n non-negative integers a1, a2, ..., an , where each represents a point at coordinate (i, ai). n vertical lines are drawn such that the two endpoints of the line i is at (i, ai) and (i, 0). Find two lines, which, together with the x-axis forms a container, such that the container contains the most water.
Example 1

Input

height = [1,8,6,2,5,4,8,3,7]

Output

49

Example 2
Input

height = [1,1]

Output

1

Example 3
Input

height = [4,3,2,1,4]

Output

16

Example 4
Input

height = [1,2,1]

Output

2

Approach

Use two-pointer algorithm to calculate the maximum amount of water within the vertical lines. Set two variables left and right, and multiply smaller vertical line min(height[left], height[right]) to the number of spaces in between - (right - left)

Solution (Python)

class Solution:
    def maxArea(self, height: List[int]) -> int:
        left = 0 
        right = len(height) - 1
        
        maxArea = 0 
        
        while left < right:
            maxArea = max(maxArea, (right - left) * min(height[left], height[right]))
            
            if height[left] < height[right]:
                left = left + 1
            else:
                right = right - 1
        
        return maxArea

Result
Runtime: 152 ms
Memory Usage: 16.3 MB
Runtime Beats 61.64% of Python Submission