Problem Statement

Given an integer array nums, find three numbers whose product is maximum and return the maximum product.

Example 1:

Input: nums = [1,2,3]
Output: 6

Example 2:

Input: nums = [1,2,3,4]
Output: 24

Example 3:

Input: nums = [-1,-2,-3]
Output: -6

Constraints:

• 3 <= nums.length <= 104
• 1000 <= nums[i] <= 1000

Problem Link

Maximum Product of Three Numbers - LeetCode

Reference Link

Maximum product of a triplet (subsequence of size 3) in array - GeeksforGeeks

Code

class Solution {
public:
    int maximumProduct(vector<int>& nums) {
        
        int n = nums.size();
        if(n==3)
            return nums[0]*nums[1]*nums[2];
        int max1,max2,max3,min1,min2;
        
        max1 = max2 = max3 = INT_MIN;
        min1 = min2 = INT_MAX;
        
        for(int ele:nums)
        {
            if(ele>max1)
            {
                max3 = max2;
                max2 = max1;
                max1 = ele;
            }
            
            else if(ele>max2)
            {
                
                max3 = max2;
                max2 = ele;
            }
            
            else if(ele>max3)
            {
                max3 = ele;
            }
            
            if(ele<min1)
            {
                min2 = min1;
                min1 = ele;
            }
            
            else if(ele<min2)
            {
               
                min2 = ele;
            }
        }
        
        
        return max(max1*max2*max3,min1*min2*max1);
        
    }
};