How can we find second maximum from array efficiently?

Question

Is it possible to find the second maximum number from an array of integers by traversing the array only once?

As an example, I have a array of five integers from which I want to find second maximum number. Here is an attempt I gave in the interview:

#define MIN -1
int main()
{
    int max=MIN,second_max=MIN;
    int arr[6]={0,1,2,3,4,5};
    for(int i=0;i<5;i++){
        cout<<"::"<<arr[i];
    }
    for(int i=0;i<5;i++){
        if(arr[i]>max){
            second_max=max;
            max=arr[i];          
        }
    }
    cout<<endl<<"Second Max:"<<second_max;
    int i;
    cin>>i;
    return 0;
}

The interviewer, however, came up with the test case int arr[6]={5,4,3,2,1,0};, which prevents it from going to the if condition the second time. I said to the interviewer that the only way would be to parse the array two times (two for loops). Does anybody have a better solution?

Answer 1

Your initialization of max and second_max to -1 is flawed. What if the array has values like {-2,-3,-4}?

What you can do instead is to take the first 2 elements of the array (assuming the array has at least 2 elements), compare them, assign the smaller one to second_max and the larger one to max:

if(arr[0] > arr[1]) {
 second_max = arr[1];
 max = arr[0];
} else {
 second_max = arr[0];
 max = arr[1];
}

Then start comparing from the 3rd element and update max and/or second_max as needed:

for(int i = 2; i < arr_len; i++){
    // use >= n not just > as max and second_max can hav same value. Ex:{1,2,3,3}   
    if(arr[i] >= max){  
        second_max=max;
        max=arr[i];          
    }
    else if(arr[i] > second_max){
        second_max=arr[i];
    }
}

Answer 2

The easiest solution would be to use std::nth_element.