Squares of a Sorted Array
(#977), Easy
Category: Array, Two Pointer, Sorting
Problem Statement
Given an integer array nums sorted in non-decreasing order, return an array of the squares of each number, also sorted in non-decreasing order.
Examples
Input: nums = [-4, -1, 0, 3, 10]
Output: [0, 1, 9, 16, 100]
Explanation: Square each element: [16, 1, 0, 9, 100] ➝ sort the array to get [0, 1, 9, 16, 100].
Approach
Brute Force with Sort
- Loop through the array and square each element.
- Sort the resulting array using `.sort((a, b) => a - b)` to ensure numerical order.
- Return the sorted array.
var sortedSquares = function(nums) {
for (let i = 0; i < nums.length; i++) {
nums[i] = nums[i] * nums[i];
}
return nums.sort((a, b) => a - b);
};
console.log(sortedSquares([-4, -1, 0, 3, 10])); // Output: [0, 1, 9, 16, 100]Complexity
Time: O(n log n)
Space: O(1) (in-place, ignoring output array if returned separately)