Given an array of numbers, return array of products of all other numbers (no division)

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I was asked this question in a job interview, and I’d like to know how others would solve it. I’m most comfortable with Java, but solutions in other languages are welcome.

Given an array of numbers, nums, return an array of numbers products, where products[i] is the product of all nums[j], j != i.

Input : [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Output: [(2*3*4*5), (1*3*4*5), (1*2*4*5), (1*2*3*5), (1*2*3*4)]
      = [120, 60, 40, 30, 24]

You must do this in O(N) without using division.

48 Answers
48

An explanation of polygenelubricants method is:

The trick is to construct the arrays (in the case for 4 elements):

{              1,         a[0],    a[0]*a[1],    a[0]*a[1]*a[2],  }
{ a[1]*a[2]*a[3],    a[2]*a[3],         a[3],                 1,  }

Both of which can be done in O(n) by starting at the left and right edges respectively.

Then, multiplying the two arrays element-by-element gives the required result.

My code would look something like this:

int a[N] // This is the input
int products_below[N];
int p = 1;
for (int i = 0; i < N; ++i) {
    products_below[i] = p;
    p *= a[i];
}

int products_above[N];
p = 1;
for (int i = N - 1; i >= 0; --i) {
    products_above[i] = p;
    p *= a[i];
}

int products[N]; // This is the result
for (int i = 0; i < N; ++i) {
    products[i] = products_below[i] * products_above[i];
}

If you need the solution be O(1) in space as well, you can do this (which is less clear in my opinion):

int a[N] // This is the input
int products[N];

// Get the products below the current index
int p = 1;
for (int i = 0; i < N; ++i) {
    products[i] = p;
    p *= a[i];
}

// Get the products above the current index
p = 1;
for (int i = N - 1; i >= 0; --i) {
    products[i] *= p;
    p *= a[i];
}

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