Find the Highest Altitude

Problem Description

There is a biker going on a road trip. The road trip consists of n + 1 points at different altitudes. The biker starts his trip on point 0 with altitude equal 0. You are given an integer array gain of length n where gain[i] is the net gain in altitude between points i and i + 1 for all (0 <= i < n). Return the highest altitude of a point.

Key Insights

• The biker starts at an altitude of 0.
• Each element in the gain array represents a change in altitude.
• The problem requires calculating cumulative altitude changes to find the highest point reached.
• A simple iteration through the gain array can achieve the desired result.

Space and Time Complexity

Time Complexity: O(n)
Space Complexity: O(1)

Solution

To solve the problem, we can use a single variable to keep track of the current altitude as we iterate through the gain array. We will also maintain a variable to store the maximum altitude reached during the trip. For each element in the gain array, we will update the current altitude and check if it is the highest altitude observed so far.

Code Solutions