Problem

Given an integer array arr, remove a subarray (can be empty) from arr such that the remaining elements in arr are non-decreasing.

Return the length of the shortest subarray to remove.

A subarray is a contiguous subsequence of the array.

Examples

Example 1:

Input: arr = [1,2,3,10,4,2,3,5]
Output: 3
Explanation: The shortest subarray we can remove is [10,4,2] of length 3. The remaining elements after that will be [1,2,3,3,5] which are sorted.
Another correct solution is to remove the subarray [3,10,4].

Example 2:

Input: arr = [5,4,3,2,1]
Output: 4
Explanation: Since the array is strictly decreasing, we can only keep a single element. Therefore we need to remove a subarray of length 4, either [5,4,3,2] or [4,3,2,1].

Example 3:

Input: arr = [1,2,3]
Output: 0
Explanation: The array is already non-decreasing. We do not need to remove any elements.

Solution

Method 1 - Two Pointer Technique

We can follow this approach:

  1. Identify the longest non-decreasing subarray from the beginning.
  2. Identify the longest non-decreasing subarray from the end.
  3. Use a two-pointer technique to find the shortest subarray that can be removed such that the remaining array is non-decreasing by combining parts of the two subarrays from steps 1 and 2.
  4. The length of the shortest subarray to remove will be the minimum of all possible combinations.

Code

Java
public class Solution {
    public int findLengthOfShortestSubarray(int[] arr) {
        int n = arr.length;
        int left = 0;
        
        // Find the longest non-decreasing subarray from the start
        while (left < n - 1 && arr[left] <= arr[left + 1]) {
            left++;
        }
        
        // If the entire array is non-decreasing
        if (left == n - 1) {
            return 0;
        }
        
        int right = n - 1;
        // Find the longest non-decreasing subarray from the end
        while (right > 0 && arr[right - 1] <= arr[right]) {
            right--;
        }
        
        // Compute the minimum length to remove
        int ans = Math.min(n - left - 1, right);
        int i = 0, j = right;
        
        while (i <= left && j < n) {
            if (arr[i] <= arr[j]) {
                ans = Math.min(ans, j - i - 1);
                i++;
            } else {
                j++;
            }
        }
        
        return ans;
    }
}
Python
class Solution:
    def findLengthOfShortestSubarray(self, arr: List[int]) -> int:
        n = len(arr)
        left = 0
        
        # Find the longest non-decreasing subarray from the start
        while left < n - 1 and arr[left] <= arr[left + 1]:
            left += 1
        
        # If the entire array is non-decreasing
        if left == n - 1:
            return 0
        
        right = n - 1
        # Find the longest non-decreasing subarray from the end
        while right > 0 and arr[right - 1] <= arr[right]:
            right -= 1
        
        # Compute the minimal length to remove
        ans = min(n - left - 1, right)
        i, j = 0, right
        
        while i <= left and j < n:
            if arr[i] <= arr[j]:
                ans = min(ans, j - i - 1)
                i += 1
            else:
                j += 1
        
        return ans

Complexity

  • ⏰ Time complexity: O(n), as the solution involves two passes through the array to find the longest non-decreasing subarrays from the start and end, and another pass to combine them.
  • 🧺 Space complexity: O(1)