notes/OJ notes/pages/Leetcode Best-Time-To-Buy-And-Sell-Stock.md

# Leetcode Best-Time-To-Buy-And-Sell-Stock

#### 2022-06-11

---

##### Data structures:

#DS #array

##### Algorithms:

#algorithm #Kadane_s_algorithm

##### Difficulty:

#leetcode #coding_problem #difficulty_easy

##### Related topics:

##### Links:

- [Link to problem](https://leetcode.com/problems/best-time-to-buy-and-sell-stock/)
- [Kadane's Algo solution](https://leetcode.com/problems/best-time-to-buy-and-sell-stock/solution/554875)

---

### Problem

You are given an array `prices` where `prices[i]` is the price of a given stock on the `ith` day.

You want to maximize your profit by choosing a **single day** to buy one stock and choosing a **different day in the future** to sell that stock.

Return _the maximum profit you can achieve from this transaction_. If you cannot achieve any profit, return `0`.

#### Examples

Example 1:

```
Input: prices = [7,1,5,3,6,4]
Output: 5
Explanation: Buy on day 2 (price = 1) and sell on day 5 (price = 6), profit = 6-1 = 5.
Note that buying on day 2 and selling on day 1 is not allowed because you must buy before you sell.

```

Example 2:

```
Input: prices = [7,6,4,3,1]
Output: 0
Explanation: In this case, no transactions are done and the max profit = 0.

```

#### Constraints

- 1 <= prices.length <= 105
- 0 <= prices[i] <= 104

### Thoughts

Firstly I thought of brute forcing, which is O(n \* (n-1))
Then, I came up with dynamic programming, but this is still not so optimized
Lastly, from [here](https://leetcode.com/problems/best-time-to-buy-and-sell-stock/solution/554875) I know We can use Kadane's algo.

> [!tip]
> In Kadane's algorithm:
>
> - buyprice = min(buyprice, price[i]) // Achieve best min price
> - profit = max(profit, price[i] - buyprice) // find best profit **==so far==**

To explain that, in each iteration, there are two cases:

- if the current price is the lowest, set the buyprice to the lowest one
- if the current price minus the `buyprice` is bigger tham profit, record that to profit.

So, the magic part happens **at setting the buyprice**, because the best profit will and only will occur **after the lowest buyprice is set**, thus we can find best solution in one run.

### Solution

Time O(2n) Space O(n) solution (inefficient reverse kadane's algorithm)

```cpp
class Solution {
public:
  int maxProfit(vector<int> &prices) {
    // Dynamic programming. and hash table.
    int size = prices.size();
    unordered_map<int, int> localmax;
    int max = 0;

    // populate localmax: max value after this one
    // the first one
    localmax[size - 1] = prices[size - 1];
    for (int i = size - 2; i >= 0; i--) {
      localmax[i] = std::max(prices[i + 1], localmax[i + 1]);
    }

    for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
      if (localmax[i] - prices[i] > max) {
        max = localmax[i] - prices[i];
      }
    }
    return max;
  }
};
```

Kadane's algorithm, Time O(n) Space O(1)

```cpp
class Solution {
public:
  int maxProfit(vector<int> &prices) {
    // Kadane's algorithm
    // buyprice == min(buyprice, prices[i])
    int buyprice = INT_MAX;
    int profit = 0;

    for (int i = 0; i < prices.size(); i++) {
      buyprice = min(buyprice, prices[i]);

      profit = max(prices[i] - buyprice, profit);
    }

    return profit;
  }
};
```