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Finding three elements in an array whose sum is closest to a given number

Asked 2010-01-15T08:46:58.893
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Given an array of integers, A1, A2, ..., An, including negatives and positives, and another integer S. Now we need to find three different integers in the array, whose sum is closest to the given integer S. If there exists more than one solution, any of them is ok.

You can assume all the integers are within int32_t range, and no arithmetic overflow will occur with calculating the sum. S is nothing special but a randomly picked number.

Is there any efficient algorithm other than brute force search to find the three integers?

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How about something like this, which is O(n^2)

for(each ele in the sorted array)
{
    ele = arr[i] - YOUR_NUMBER;
    let front be the pointer to the front of the array;
    let rear be the pointer to the rear element of the array.;

    // till front is not greater than rear.                    
    while(front <= rear)
    {
        if(*front + *rear == ele)
        {
            print "Found triplet "<<*front<<","<<*rear<<","<<ele<<endl;
            break;
        }
        else
        {
            // sum is > ele, so we need to decrease the sum by decrementing rear pointer.
            if((*front + *rear) > ele)
                decrement rear pointer.
            // sum is < ele, so we need to increase the sum by incrementing the front pointer.
            else
                increment front pointer.
        }
    }

This finds if sum of 3 elements is exactly equal to your number. If you want closest, you can modify it to remember the smallest delta(difference between your number of current triplet) and at the end print the triplet corresponding to smallest delta.

answered 2010-01-15T09:26:08.927

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