2025-09-10 12:09

Status: child

Tags: leetcode leetcode-medium Leetcode heaps Heaps Intro

Kth Largest Element in an Array

Code

import heapq
 
class Solution(object):
    def findKthLargest(self, nums, k):
        """
        :type nums: List[int]
        :type k: int
        :rtype: int
        """
        
        # max heap
        heap = []
        for num in nums:
            if len(heap) < k:
                heapq.heappush(heap, num)
            else:
                heapq.heappushpop(heap, num)
        return heap[0]

Explanation

1. Just like K Closest Points to Origin without the distance calculations
2. Iterate through nums, and if the heap length is less than k, well push
3. Else: heappushpop the current num
4. Return the first element in heap(heap[0])

References

Greg Hogg