如何在不比较数组元素的情况下修改find​​Min以查找最小元素（使用findMax）

Question

// Method for getting the maximum value
public static int findMax(int[] inputArray) {
    int maxValue = inputArray[0];
    for (int i = 1; i < inputArray.length; i++) {
        if (inputArray[i] > maxValue) {
            maxValue = inputArray[i];
        }
    }
    return maxValue;
}

// Method for getting the minimum value
public static int findMin(int[] inputArray) {
    int minValue = inputArray[0];
    for (int i = 1; i < inputArray.length; i++) {
        if (inputArray[i] < minValue) {
            minValue = inputArray[i];
        }
    }
    return minValue;
}

How do I modify findMin to find the minimum element without comparing the array elements (use findMax )?

Answer 1

Without further information about inputArray , for example knowing about some specific ordering of the elements, there's no better way to find the min / max element in a general order of randomly ordered elements without visiting each element once. That's all your methods do now, there are no wasted operations here. The code is good as it is (after @rink.attendant.6 kindly reformatted properly).

Answer 2

My only suggestion for possible simplification is to use Java 8 streams:

return Arrays.stream(inputArray).parallel().min().get();

and

return Arrays.stream(inputArray).parallel().max().get();

It's possible that this could achieve better performance than straight iteration by parallel processing of sublists.

Another potential optimisation is to find both the min and max in a single operation:

IntSummaryStatistics stats = Arrays.stream(inputArray).summaryStatistics();
int min = stats.getMin();
int max = stats.getMax();