mediumDSA

How do you solve the container with most water problem?

Q: How do you solve the container with most water problem?

**Intuition.** Two vertical lines form a container whose water area is min(leftHeight, rightHeight) × width . Start with the **widest** container (pointers at both ends) and move inward. Always advance the **shorter** wall — keeping it can never beat the current area, since width only shrinks. area = min(walls) × width; move the shorter wall <line x1="180" y1="150" x2="180"

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Explain max-area two-pointer.

arraystwo-pointers

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Greedy two pointers

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def max_area(height):
    left, right = 0, len(height) - 1
    best = 0
    while left < right:
        best = max(best, min(height[left], height[right]) * (right - left))
        if height[left] < height[right]:
            left += 1
        else:
            right -= 1
    return best


# --- demo ---
print(max_area([1, 8, 6, 2, 5, 4, 8, 3, 7]))   # 49

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