✅ DSA Part 3 – Arrays & Sliding Window 📊🧠

Arrays are the foundation of data structures. Mastering them unlocks many advanced topics like sorting, searching, and dynamic programming.

1️⃣ What is an Array?
An array is a collection of elements stored at contiguous memory locations. All elements are of the same data type.

Python Example:

arr = [10, 20, 30, 40]
print(arr[2])  # Output: 30

C++ Example:

int arr[] = {10, 20, 30, 40};
cout << arr[2];  // Output: 30

Java Example:

int[] arr = {10, 20, 30, 40};
System.out.println(arr[2]);  // Output: 30

2️⃣ Basic Array Operations:
• Insert
• Delete
• Traverse
• Search
• Update

Python – Traversal:

for i in arr:
    print(i)

C++ – Search:

for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
    if (arr[i] == key) {
        // Found
    }
}

Java – Update:

arr[1] = 99;  // Updates second element

3️⃣ Sliding Window Technique 🪟
Used to reduce time complexity in problems involving subarrays or substrings.

▶️ Fixed-size window:
Find max sum of subarray of size k
▶️ Variable-size window:
Find longest substring with unique characters

4️⃣ Sliding Window – Max Sum Subarray (Size k)

Python:

def max_sum(arr, k):
    window_sum = sum(arr[:k])
    max_sum = window_sum
    for i in range(k, len(arr)):
        window_sum += arr[i] - arr[i - k]
        max_sum = max(max_sum, window_sum)
    return max_sum

print(max_sum([1, 4, 2, 10, 2, 3], 3))  # Output: 16

5️⃣ Practice Tasks:
✅ Find the second largest element in an array
✅ Implement sliding window to find max sum subarray
✅ Try variable-size window: longest substring without repeating characters

👇 Solution for Practice Tasks

✅ 1. Find the Second Largest Element in an Array

Python:

def second_largest(arr):
    first = second = float('-inf')
    for num in arr:
        if num > first:
            second = first
            first = num
        elif first > num > second:
            second = num
    return second if second != float('-inf') else None

print(second_largest([10, 20, 4, 45, 99]))  # Output: 45

✅ 2. Max Sum Subarray (Fixed-size Sliding Window)

Python:

def max_sum(arr, k):
    window_sum = sum(arr[:k])
    max_sum = window_sum
    for i in range(k, len(arr)):
        window_sum += arr[i] - arr[i - k]
        max_sum = max(max_sum, window_sum)
    return max_sum

print(max_sum([1, 4, 2, 10, 2, 3, 1, 0, 20], 4))  # Output: 24

✅ 3. Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters (Variable-size Sliding Window)

Python:

def longest_unique_substring(s):
    seen = {}
    left = max_len = 0
    for right in range(len(s)):
        if s[right] in seen and seen[s[right]] >= left:
            left = seen[s[right]] + 1
        seen[s[right]] = right
        max_len = max(max_len, right - left + 1)
    return max_len

print(longest_unique_substring("abcabcbb"))  # Output: 3 ("abc")

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