Maximum Product of Three Numbers in C++

Suppose we have an integer array; we have to find three numbers whose product is maximum then return the maximum product.

So, if the input is like [1,1,2,3,3], then the output will be 18, as the three elements are [2,3,3].

To solve this, we will follow these steps −

• sort the array nums

• l := size of nums

• a := nums[l - 1], b := nums[l - 2], c := nums[l - 3], d := nums[0], e := nums[1]

• return maximum of a * b * c and d * e * a

Example 

Let us see the following implementation to get better understanding −

 Live Demo

#include <bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;
class Solution {
public:
   int maximumProduct(vector<int>& nums) {
      sort(nums.begin(), nums.end());
      int l = nums.size();
      int a = nums[l - 1], b = nums[l - 2], c = nums[l - 3], d = nums[0], e = nums[1];
      return max(a * b * c, d * e * a);
   }
};
main(){
   Solution ob;
   vector<int> v = {1,1,2,3,3};
   cout << (ob.maximumProduct(v));
}

Input

{1,1,2,3,3}

Output

18