LeetCode: Container With Most Water

Find the container with the most water.

Posted on LeetCode Python

Solution

This is another two-pointer problem. One pointer starts from the first element; the other starts from the last element.

The area is the distance between the two pointers multiplied by the shorter of the two heights. We keep track of the best area found so far.

Runtime

60 ms | Beats 93.93% 

class Solution:
    def maxArea(self, height: List[int]) -> int:
        left = 0
        right = len(height) - 1
        best_area = -1
        while left < right:
            shortest = min(height[left], height[right])
            area = (right - left) * shortest
            if area > best_area:
                best_area = area


            if height[left] == shortest:
                left += 1
            else:
                right -= 1


        return best_area