CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpython-3.xalgorithm
rahul
rahul

Reputation: 1122

Find the minimum number in an array

I had gone through many articles over internet to find minimum number in an array. According to article they iterate an array n number of times but purpose can be achieve n/2 + 1 iteration

Here is my code

for index in range(0, int(len(myArray)/2)+1):
 if minNum > myArray[index]:
    minNum = myArray[index]

 lastElement = - index - 1

 if minNum > myArray[lastElement]:
    minNum = myArray[lastElement]

Article code

for element in myArray:
  if minNum > element:
    minNum = element

Update my code to 

for index in range(0, int(len(myArray)/2)+1):
 if minNum > myArray[index]:
    minNum = myArray[index]

 if minNum > myArray[- index - 1]:
    minNum = myArray[- index - 1]

Is there is any reason why they used n iteration

Upvotes: 0

Views: 226

Answers (1)

Pushan Gupta
Pushan Gupta

Reputation: 3825

Your code has a small overhead and is actually slower than the article code.

I have made a small program that compares the execution time for both

Check this.

Explanation:

In the legacy style,

The loop runs for n times and make 1 comparison every time. Thus abruptly speaking, it takes, O(n) time. In your code the loop runs for around n/2 times and makes 2 comparisons every time plus the overhead of initializing the

lastElement

Thus although both take around O(n) times but the solution OP provides should run slower in most cases

OP's answer could run faster in the case when the degree of sorting is high. Processing sorted arrays is much faster.

Upvotes: 3

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