How to find the minimun of an array? - c++

Question

I was trying to solve this question
but codechef.com says the answer is wrong.
#include <iostream>
#include <cmath>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
int t, n, diff, mindiff;
cin >> t;
cin >> n;
int val[n];
while(t--)
{
mindiff = 1000000000;
for(int i = 0; i<n; i++)
{
cin >> val[i];
}
int a = 0;
for(a = 0; a<n ; a++)
{
for(int b=a+1; b<n ; b++)
{
diff = abs(val[a] - val[b]);
if(diff <= mindiff)
{
mindiff = diff;
}
}
}
cout << mindiff << endl;
}
return 0;
}
The results are as expected (for at least the tests I did) buts the website says its wrong.

Answer 1

There are a few things in your code that you should change:
Use std::vector<int> and not variable-length arrays (VLA's):
Reasons:
Variable length arrays are not standard C++. A std::vector is standard C++.
Variable length arrays may exhaust stack memory if the number of entries is large. A std::vector gets its memory from the heap, not the stack.
Variable length arrays suffer from the same problem as regular arrays -- going beyond the bounds of the array leads to undefined
behavior. A std::array has an at() function that can check boundary access when desired.
Use the maximum int to get the maximum integer value.
Instead of
mindif = 1000000000;
it should be:
#include <climits>
//...
int mindiff = std::numeric_limits<int>::max();
As to the solution you chose, the comments in the main section about the nested loop should be addressed.
Instead of a nested for loop, you should sort the data first. Thus finding the minimum value between two values is much easier and with less time complexity.
The program can look something like this (using the data provided at the link):
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <climits>
#include <algorithm>
int main()
{
int n = 5;
std::vector<int> val = {4, 9, 1, 32, 13};
int mindiff = std::numeric_limits<int>::max();
std::sort(val.begin(), val.end());
for(int a = 0; a < n-1 ; a++)
mindiff = std::min(val[a+1] - val[a], mindiff);
std::cout << mindiff;
}
Output:
3

Answer 2

To do this you can use a simple for():
// you already have an array called "arr" which contains some numbers.
int biggestNumber = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < arr.size(); i++) {
if (arr[i] > biggestNumber) {
biggestNumber = arr[i];
}
}
arr.size will get the array's length so that you can check every value from the position 0 to the last one which is arr.size() - 1 (because arrays are 0 based in c++).
Hope this helps.