LeetCode Entry

1855. Maximum Distance Between a Pair of Values

19.04.2026 medium 2026 kotlin rust

Max distance a[i] not greater than b[j] window

1855. Maximum Distance Between a Pair of Values medium

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Problem TLDR

Max distance a[i] not greater than b[j] #medium #sliding_window

Intuition

1. Sliding window: for each left pointer move the rigth as far as possible
2. Max-window: always expand the window, shrink window only when condition is broken

Approach

• the max-window is more clever
• binary search would also work

Complexity

• Time complexity: \(O(n)\), nlog(n) for binarysearch

• Space complexity: \(O(1)\)

Code

// 81ms
    fun maxDistance(a: IntArray, b: IntArray) = maxOf(0, a.indices
    .maxOf { i -> -b.asList().binarySearch { if (it < a[i]) 1 else -1 }-i-2 })

// 3ms
    pub fn max_distance(a: Vec<i32>, b: Vec<i32>) -> i32 {
        let (mut i, mut j) = (0, 0);
        while i < a.len() && j < b.len() { if a[i] > b[j] { i += 1 }; j += 1}
        0.max(j as i32 - i as i32 - 1)
    }