Finding the max/min value in an array of primitives using Java

user_147601 0
Viewed 753068

It's trivial to write a function to determine the min/max value in an array, such as:

/**
 * 
 * @param chars
 * @return the max value in the array of chars
 */
private static int maxValue(char[] chars) {
    int max = chars[0];
    for (int ktr = 0; ktr < chars.length; ktr++) {
        if (chars[ktr] > max) {
            max = chars[ktr];
        }
    }
    return max;
}

but isn't this already done somewhere?

frameworks arrays algorithm java
16 Answers

I have a little helper class in all of my applications with methods like:

public static double arrayMax(double[] arr) {
    double max = Double.NEGATIVE_INFINITY;

    for(double cur: arr)
        max = Math.max(max, cur);

    return max;
}
user_8226640

A solution with reduce():

int[] array = {23, 3, 56, 97, 42};
// directly print out
Arrays.stream(array).reduce((x, y) -> x > y ? x : y).ifPresent(System.out::println);

// get the result as an int
int res = Arrays.stream(array).reduce((x, y) -> x > y ? x : y).getAsInt();
System.out.println(res);
>>
97
97

In the code above, reduce() returns data in Optional format, which you can convert to int by getAsInt().

If we want to compare the max value with a certain number, we can set a start value in reduce():

int[] array = {23, 3, 56, 97, 42};
// e.g., compare with 100
int max = Arrays.stream(array).reduce(100, (x, y) -> x > y ? x : y);
System.out.println(max);
>>
100

In the code above, when reduce() with an identity (start value) as the first parameter, it returns data in the same format with the identity. With this property, we can apply this solution to other arrays:

double[] array = {23.1, 3, 56.6, 97, 42};
double max = Arrays.stream(array).reduce(array[0], (x, y) -> x > y ? x : y);
System.out.println(max);
>>
97.0
user_104192040

Pass the array to a method that sorts it with Arrays.sort() so it only sorts the array the method is using then sets min to array[0] and max to array[array.length-1].

user_29818160

Here is a solution to get the max value in about 99% of runs (change the 0.01 to get a better result):

public static double getMax(double[] vals){
    final double[] max = {Double.NEGATIVE_INFINITY};

    IntStream.of(new Random().ints((int) Math.ceil(Math.log(0.01) / Math.log(1.0 - (1.0/vals.length))),0,vals.length).toArray())
            .forEach(r -> max[0] = (max[0] < vals[r])? vals[r]: max[0]);

    return max[0];
}

(Not completely serious)

user_49282120 
    int[] arr = {1, 2, 3};

    List<Integer> list = Arrays.stream(arr).boxed().collect(Collectors.toList());
    int max_ = Collections.max(list);
    int i;
    if (max_ > 0) {
        for (i = 1; i < Collections.max(list); i++) {
            if (!list.contains(i)) {
                System.out.println(i);
                break;
            }
        }
        if(i==max_){
            System.out.println(i+1);
        }
    } else {
        System.out.println("1");
    }
}
user_66986280
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