Max-Min Problem (Divide and Conquer Technique)

MaxMin is a recursive algorithm to find the largest and smallest elements from a set of elements.

Let us consider an array of n numbers {a[0], a[1],...,a[n-1]}. Hence, at the time of finding the largest and the smallest element of the array, the largest and the smallest elements are kept in max and min variables respectively.

Max-Min Implementation in C language

#include <stdio.h> int largest, smallest; void maxmin(int *arr, int i, int j) { int large, small, mid; if (i == j) { largest = smallest = arr[i]; } else { if (i == j - 1) { if (arr[i] < arr[j]) { largest = arr[j]; smallest = arr[i]; } else { largest = arr[i]; smallest = arr[j]; } } else { mid = (i + j) / 2; maxmin(arr, i, mid); large = largest; small = smallest; maxmin(arr, mid + 1, j); if (largest < large) largest = large; if (smallest > small) smallest = small; } } } int main() { int i, num; int *arr; printf("\nMax & Min\n"); printf("\nEnter the total number of elements : "); scanf("%d", &num); arr = (int *)malloc(num * sizeof(int)); printf("Enter the elements : \n"); for (i = 0; i < num; i++) { scanf("%d", &arr[i]); } largest = arr[0]; smallest = arr[0]; maxmin(arr, 0, num - 1); printf("Maximum element is : %d\n", largest); printf("Minimum element is : %d\n", smallest); return 0; }

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