Question

Describe an algorithm for finding both the largest and the smallest integers in a finite sequence of integers. Write a C++ program to test your algorithm.

Answer 1

An algorithm to find the largest and smallest integers in a sequence relies on initializing two variables for maximum and minimum values and updating these as the sequence is processed. A C++ program is provided to demonstrate this algorithm in action.

Step-by-step explanation:

To find the largest and smallest integers in a sequence, we can use a simple algorithm that initializes two variables, one to hold the maximum value (initialized to the minimum possible integer) and one for the minimum value (initialized to the maximum possible integer). We then iterate through each number in the sequence, updating our maximum and minimum values accordingly. Below is a C++ program that demonstrates this algorithm.

#include
#include
using namespace std;

int main() {
int n, num;
int maxVal = INT_MIN;
int minVal = INT_MAX;

cout << "Enter the number of elements in the sequence: ";
cin >> n;

for(int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
cout << "Enter number " << i + 1 << ": ";
cin >> num;
if(num > maxVal) maxVal = num;
if(num < minVal) minVal = num;
}

cout << "The largest number is " << maxVal << "\\";
cout << "The smallest number is " << minVal << "\\";
return 0;
}
The program prompts the user for the number of elements and then for each integer in the sequence, updating the maximum and minimum values as it goes. This is a straightforward example of an algorithm that clearly demonstrates the concept of finding the extreme values in a list of integers.