Approach
Depth-first search
For Path with Maximum Minimum Value, the implementation follows one branch at a time, making it suitable for components, trees, backtracking, or dependency exploration.
- Define the state carried into one recursive or stack frame.
- Mark or choose the current state before exploring children.
- Combine child results or undo the choice when the branch finishes.
Code notes
- 71 lines of Python from the credited upstream file path-with-maximum-minimum-value.py.
- The implementation visibly relies on sequence storage, ordered lookup, work queue.
- No explicit loop blocks detected, together with recursive traversal.
Complexity
Count unique states for graph traversal; for backtracking, count the branching factor and maximum depth.
Check the problem constraints before deciding whether this complexity will pass.
Use this to learn the idea, then write your own version.
123 45class Solution(object):6 def maximumMinimumPath(self, A):7 """8 :type A: List[List[int]]9 :rtype: int10 """11 directions = [(0, 1), (1, 0), (0, -1), (-1, 0)]12 13 def check(A, val, r, c, lookup):14 if r == len(A)-1 and c == len(A[0])-1:15 return True16 lookup.add((r, c))17 for d in directions:18 nr, nc = r + d[0], c + d[1]19 if 0 <= nr < len(A) and \20 0 <= nc < len(A[0]) and \21 (nr, nc) not in lookup and \22 A[nr][nc] >= val and \23 check(A, val, nr, nc, lookup):24 return True25 return False26 27 vals, ceil = [], min(A[0][0], A[-1][-1])28 for i in xrange(len(A)):29 for j in xrange(len(A[0])):30 if A[i][j] <= ceil:31 vals.append(A[i][j])32 vals = list(set(vals))33 vals.sort()34 left, right = 0, len(vals)-135 while left <= right:36 mid = left + (right-left)237 if not check(A, vals[mid], 0, 0, set()):38 right = mid-139 else:40 left = mid+141 return vals[right]42 43 444546import heapq47 48 4950class Solution2(object):51 def maximumMinimumPath(self, A):52 """53 :type A: List[List[int]]54 :rtype: int55 """56 directions = [(0, 1), (1, 0), (0, -1), (-1, 0)]57 max_heap = [(-A[0][0], 0, 0)]58 lookup = set([(0, 0)])59 while max_heap:60 i, r, c = heapq.heappop(max_heap)61 if r == len(A)-1 and c == len(A[0])-1:62 return -i63 for d in directions:64 nr, nc = r+d[0], c+d[1]65 if 0 <= nr < len(A) and \66 0 <= nc < len(A[0]) and \67 (nr, nc) not in lookup:68 heapq.heappush(max_heap, (-min(-i, A[nr][nc]), nr, nc))69 lookup.add((nr, nc)) 70 return -171