Solution: Find the Kth Largest Integer in the Array

Understand how to apply the top K elements pattern to find the kth largest integer in an array of numeric strings. Learn to use a min heap to maintain the k largest elements dynamically, avoid full sorting, and optimize your solution's time complexity. This lesson helps you implement and analyze an efficient approach suitable for coding interviews involving array and heap techniques.

We'll cover the following...

Statement
Solution
- Time complexity
- Space complexity

Statement

Given an array of strings, nums, where each string represents an integer without leading zeros, and an integer k, your task is to find and return the string representing the k $^{th}$ largest integer in the array.

Note: Treat duplicate integers as distinct entities. For instance, if nums $= [\text{\lq\lq2\rq\rq, \lq\lq3\rq\rq, \lq\lq3\rq\rq]}$ , the first largest integer is $\text{\lq\lq3\rq\rq}$ , the second largest is also $\text{\lq\lq3\rq\rq}$ , and the third largest is ...