Determining Feasibility of Reaching the End in a Jump Game
The canJump function accepts an integer vector nums as input and returns a boolean value indicating weather it is possible to jump from the first element to the last element of the array.
Let's analyze this code step by step:
- Variable Initialization:
int maxReach = 0;
Here, maxReach represents the farthest position that can be reached. Initially, maxReach is 0 because we haven't started jumping yet.
- Iterating Through the Array:
for (int currentIndex = 0; currentIndex < nums.size(); currentIndex++)
A for loop is used to traverse each element in the array.
- Checking If Current Position Is Reachable:
if (currentIndex > maxReach) return false;
If the current position currentIndex exceeds the farthest reachable position indicated by maxReach, then we cannot reach the current position, so the function returns false.
- Updating the Farthest Reachable Position:
maxReach = std::max(maxReach, currentIndex + nums[currentIndex]);
For each position currentIndex, we examine the maximum jump length nums[currentIndex] from that position and update maxReach to the greater value between the current farthest reachable position and the newly calculated farthest reachable position.
- Returning the Result:
return true;
If the loop completes without returning false, it means we can reach the last position of the array, so the function returns true.
Overall, this code employs a greedy strategy. It continuous attempts to jump to the farthest reachable position and updates the farthest reachable position during this process. If at any point it is discovered that the current position cannot be reached, then it can be determined that the last position of the array is unreachable.