[Codility] Lesson 9 - MaxProfit

Task discription

An array A consisting of N integers is given. It contains daily prices of a stock share for a period of N consecutive days. If a single share was bought on day P and sold on day Q, where 0 ≤ P ≤ Q < N, then the profit of such transaction is equal to A[Q] − A[P], provided that A[Q] ≥ A[P]. Otherwise, the transaction brings loss of A[P] − A[Q].

For example, consider the following array A consisting of six elements such that:

A[0] = 23171
A[1] = 21011
A[2] = 21123
A[3] = 21366
A[4] = 21013
A[5] = 21367

If a share was bought on day 0 and sold on day 2, a loss of 2048 would occur because A[2] − A[0] = 21123 − 23171 = −2048. If a share was bought on day 4 and sold on day 5, a profit of 354 would occur because A[5] − A[4] = 21367 − 21013 = 354. Maximum possible profit was 356. It would occur if a share was bought on day 1 and sold on day 5.

Write a function,

class Solution { public int solution(int[] A); }

that, given an array A consisting of N integers containing daily prices of a stock share for a period of N consecutive days, returns the maximum possible profit from one transaction during this period. The function should return 0 if it was impossible to gain any profit.

For example, given array A consisting of six elements such that:

A[0] = 23171
A[1] = 21011
A[2] = 21123
A[3] = 21366
A[4] = 21013
A[5] = 21367

the function should return 356, as explained above.

Write an efficient algorithm for the following assumptions:

• N is an integer within the range [0..400,000];
• each element of array A is an integer within the range [0..200,000].

Source code

#include <algorithm>
#include <map>

int solution(vector<int> &A) {
    int n = A.size();
    
    // 원소가 없으면 0
    if(n == 0) return 0;
    
    int min = A[0];
    int ans = 0;
    for(int i=0;i<n;i++) {
        if(A[i] < min) {
            min = A[i];
        }
        // 최솟값 기준으로 비교
        if(A[i] > min) {
            ans = max(ans, A[i]-min);
        }
    }
    if(ans < 0) return 0;
    return ans;
}