CA 06 - Find the Maximum and Minimum Element in the Array

Problem

Given an array arr[], the task is to find the minimum and maximum elements in the array.

Output
Example 1
Output: [1, 8]
Example 2
Output: [3, 15]
My Approach

To solve this problem, I used a single traversal method.

I assume the first element is both the minimum and maximum.

Then I iterate through the array:

If an element is smaller than the current minimum, I update the minimum
If an element is greater than the current maximum, I update the maximum

I continue this process until the end of the array.

This works because every element is compared only once.

This approach is efficient because:

It requires only one traversal
It uses constant extra space
Code

def find_min_max(arr):
    min_val = arr[0]
    max_val = arr[0]
    for num in arr:
        if num < min_val:
            min_val = num
        elif num > max_val:
            max_val = num
    return [min_val, max_val]