LeetCode – First Missing Positive (Java)

Category: Algorithms >> Interview   May 31, 2014

Given an unsorted integer array, find the first missing positive integer. For example, given [1,2,0] return 3 and [3,4,-1,1] return 2.

Your algorithm should run in O(n) time and uses constant space.

Analysis

This problem can solve by using a bucket-sort like algorithm. Let's consider finding first missing positive and 0 first. The key fact is that the ith element should be i, so we have:
i==A[i]
A[i]==A[A[i]]

For example, given an array {1,2,0,4}, the algorithm does the following:

first-missing-positive

int firstMissingPositiveAnd0(int A[]) {
	int n = A.length;
	for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
		// when the ith element is not i
		while (A[i] != i) {
			// no need to swap when ith element is out of range [0,n]
			if (A[i] < 0 || A[i] >= n)
				break;
 
			//handle duplicate elements
			if(A[i]==A[A[i]])
                    		break;
			// swap elements
			int temp = A[i];
			A[i] = A[temp];
			A[temp] = temp;
		}
	}
 
	for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
		if (A[i] != i)
			return i;
	}
 
	return n;
}

Java Solution

This problem only considers positive numbers, so we need to shift 1 offset. The ith element is i+1.

public int firstMissingPositive(int[] A) {
        int n = A.length;
 
    	for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
    		while (A[i] != i + 1) {
    			if (A[i] <= 0 || A[i] >= n)
    				break;
 
                	if(A[i]==A[A[i]-1])
                    		break;
 
    			int temp = A[i];
    			A[i] = A[temp - 1];
    			A[temp - 1] = temp;
    		}
    	}
 
    	for (int i = 0; i < n; i++){
    		if (A[i] != i + 1){
    			return i + 1;
    		}
    	}	
 
    	return n + 1;
}

Related posts:

  1. LeetCode – Next Permutation (Java)
  2. LeetCode – Permutations (Java)
  3. LeetCode – Missing Number (Java)
  4. LeetCode – Missing Ranges (Java)
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  • Alik Elzin

    Same solution but the i represents the numbers instead of the index in array, hence all the `-1`.

    int findFirstMissingPositive(int[] nums)
    {
    for(int i = 1 ; i <= nums.length ; i++)
    {
    while (nums[i-1] != i)
    {
    int temp = nums[i-1];
    if (temp-1 = nums.length ||
    nums[temp-1] == temp)
    {
    break;
    }

    nums[i-1] = nums[temp-1];
    nums[temp-1] = temp;
    }
    }

    for(int i = 1 ; i <= nums.length ; i++)
    {
    if (nums[i-1] != i) return i;
    }

    return nums.length;
    }

  • Jyoti Phulwani

    You are mixing 2 different questions. Here question is to find first missing positive number and the link refers to finding missing number in a range of consecutive numbers

  • up23

    What about the XOR method from http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/find-the-missing-number/?

    1) find min and max in linear time
    2) let x1 = XOR from the min value to max value
    3) let x2 = XOR of all values in input
    4) ans is XOR of x1 and x2

    function findMissingXor($inputs) {
    $min = PHP_INT_MAX;
    $max = -PHP_INT_MAX;
    $xorInputs = 0;

    foreach($inputs AS $v) {
    if ($v $max) $max = $v;
    $xorInputs ^= $v;
    }

    $xorSum = 0;
    for ($i = $min; $i <= $max; $i ++ ) {
    $xorSum ^= $i;
    }

    $ans = $xorInputs ^ $xorSum;
    if ($ans == 0) return $max + 1;
    else return $ans;
    }

  • Billionaire
  • DivyaJyoti Rajdev

    if the array is [-2,-3,-4,-8], it should return 1
    thus for java offset version->
    return (A[n-1]<=0)? 1: A[n-1]+1;

  • Risong Na

    Three things:
    1. The two code snippets are different in the second loop
    2. Special case when n == 0
    3. The final return statement should be return A[0] == n ? n + 1 : n;
    Think about 4,3,2,1 (should return 5) and 5,3,2,1 (should return 4)