LeetCode The Hard Way
0300 - 0399

0374 - Guess Number Higher or Lower (Easy)

https://leetcode.com/problems/guess-number-higher-or-lower/

Problem Statement

We are playing the Guess Game. The game is as follows:

I pick a number from 1 to n. You have to guess which number I picked.

Every time you guess wrong, I will tell you whether the number I picked is higher or lower than your guess.

You call a pre-defined API int guess(int num), which returns three possible results:

  • -1: Your guess is higher than the number I picked (i.e. num > pick).
  • 1: Your guess is lower than the number I picked (i.e. num < pick).
  • 0: your guess is equal to the number I picked (i.e. num == pick).

Return the number that I picked.

Example 1:

Input: n = 10, pick = 6
Output: 6

Example 2:

Input: n = 1, pick = 1
Output: 1

Example 3:

Input: n = 2, pick = 1
Output: 1

Constraints:

  • 1 <= n <= 2^31 - 1
  • 1 <= pick <= n

See Binary Search for basic understanding.

Written by@wkw
/**
 * Forward declaration of guess API.
 * @param  num   your guess
 * @return 	 -1 if num is higher than the picked number
 *	         1 if num is lower than the picked number
 *               otherwise return 0
 * int guess(int num);
 */

class Solution {
public:
    int guessNumber(int n) {
        int l = 1, r = n;
        while (l < r) {
            // middle point
            int m = l + (r - l) / 2;
            // check the result
            int x = guess(m);
            // found the answer
            if (x == 0) return m;
            // exclude m
            else if (x == 1) l = m + 1;
            // include m
            else r = m;
        }
        return l;
    }
};

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