744

744. Find Smallest Letter Greater Than Target (Easy)

Given a list of sorted characters letters containing only lowercase letters, and given a target letter target, find the smallest element in the list that is larger than the given target.

Letters also wrap around. For example, if the target is target = 'z' and letters = ['a', 'b'], the answer is 'a'.

Examples:

Input:
letters = ["c", "f", "j"]
target = "a"
Output: "c"
Input:
letters = ["c", "f", "j"]
target = "c"
Output: "f"
Input:
letters = ["c", "f", "j"]
target = "d"
Output: "f"
Input:
letters = ["c", "f", "j"]
target = "g"
Output: "j"
Input:
letters = ["c", "f", "j"]
target = "j"
Output: "c"
Input:
letters = ["c", "f", "j"]
target = "k"
Output: "c"

Note:

1. letters has a length in range [2, 10000].
2. letters consists of lowercase letters, and contains at least 2 unique letters.
3. target is a lowercase letter.

Solution 1.

// OJ: https://leetcode.com/problems/find-smallest-letter-greater-than-target/
// Author: github.com/lzl124631x
// Time: O(NlogN)
// Space: O(1)
class Solution {
public:
    char nextGreatestLetter(vector<char>& letters, char target) {
        auto i = upper_bound(letters.begin(), letters.end(), target);
        return i == letters.end() ? letters[0] : *i;
    }
};