Solution to LeetCode Problem 26. Remove Duplicates from the Sorted Array in JavaScript

  

A solution to LeetCode Problem 26. Remove Duplicates from the Sorted Array in JavaScript 

Welcome to another blog post in our series on solving LeetCode problems in JavaScript! Today, we will be tackling Problem 26: Remove Duplicates from Sorted Array.

In this problem, we are given a sorted array of integers and asked to remove any duplicates. The resulting array should be sorted and the length of the array should be returned.

Problem Statement:

Given an integer array nums sorted in non-decreasing order, remove the duplicates in-place such that each unique element appears only once. The relative order of the elements should be kept the same.

Since it is impossible to change the length of the array in some languages, you must instead have the result be placed in the first part of the array nums. More formally, if there are k elements after removing the duplicates, then the first k elements of nums should hold the final result. It does not matter what you leave beyond the first k elements.

Return k after placing the final result in the first k slots of nums.

Do not allocate extra space for another array. You must do this by modifying the input array in-place with O(1) extra memory.

Custom Judge:

The judge will test your solution with the following code:

int[] nums = [...]; // Input array
int[] expectedNums = [...]; // The expected answer with correct length

int k = removeDuplicates(nums); // Calls your implementation

assert k == expectedNums.length;
for (int i = 0; i < k; i++) {
    assert nums[i] == expectedNums[i];
}

If all assertions pass, then your solution will be accepted.

 

Example 1:

Input: nums = [1,1,2]
Output: 2, nums = [1,2,_]
Explanation: Your function should return k = 2, with the first two elements of nums being 1 and 2 respectively.
It does not matter what you leave beyond the returned k (hence they are underscores).

Example 2:

Input: nums = [0,0,1,1,1,2,2,3,3,4]
Output: 5, nums = [0,1,2,3,4,_,_,_,_,_]
Explanation: Your function should return k = 5, with the first five elements of nums being 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 respectively.
It does not matter what you leave beyond the returned k (hence they are underscores).

 

Constraints:

• 1 <= nums.length <= 3 * 104
• -100 <= nums[i] <= 100
• nums is sorted in non-decreasing order.

Solution:

One approach we can take to solve this problem is to use a while loop to iterate through the array and check if the current element is the same as the next element. If it is, we can use the splice method to remove the duplicate element. We can then continue iterating through the array until we reach the end.

Here is some sample code that demonstrates this approach:

function removeDuplicates(nums) {
  let i = 0;
  while (i < nums.length - 1) {
    if (nums[i] === nums[i + 1]) {
      nums.splice(i, 1);
    } else {
      i++;
    }
  }
  return nums.length;
}

This solution has a time complexity of O(n) because we are looping through the array once and only making a constant number of splice calls. The space complexity is O(1) because we are not creating any new arrays or objects and only modifying the input array in place.

Alternatively, we can use the Set object to remove duplicates from the array. The Set object stores only unique values and automatically removes duplicates. We can then use the spread operator (...) to convert the Set back into an array.

Here is an example of this approach:

function removeDuplicates(nums) {

nums = [...new Set(nums)];

return nums.length;

}

This solution also has a time complexity of O(n) because we are looping through the array once to create the Set. The space complexity is O(n) because we are creating a new Set object with a size equal to the number of elements in the array.

Conclusion:

In this blog post, we tackled LeetCode Problem 26: Remove Duplicates from Sorted Array. We presented two solutions to this problem: one using a while loop and the splice method, and another using the Set object and the spread operator. Both solutions have a time complexity of O(n) and the first solution has a space complexity of O(1) while the second solution has a space complexity of O(n).

I hope this blog post has been helpful and informative. If you have any questions or suggestions, please leave a comment below. Happy coding!