215. Kth Largest Element in an Array

Given an integer array nums and an integer k, return the kth largest element in the array.

Note that it is the kth largest element in the sorted order, not the kth distinct element.

You must solve it in O(n) time complexity.

class Solution:
    def findKthLargest(self, nums: List[int], k: int) -> int:
        heap = []
        for num in nums:
            if len(heap) < k:
                heapq.heappush(heap, num)
            elif num > heap[0]:
                heapq.heappushpop(heap, num)
        return heap[0]

• simple heap problem.
• keep a min-heap of the k largest elements of the array.
• at the end, the kth largest element will be at the top of the heap.

Categories:: heap, array