Top K Frequent Elements (opens in new tab)

leetcode.com Problem Statement Given an integer array and an integer k, return the k most frequent elements. Brute Force Intuition Count frequencies. Sort elements based on frequency. Return first K elements. Complexity Time Complexity: O(N log N) Space Complexity: O(N) Moving Towards the Optimal Approach We only need: Top K Frequencies Not the entire sorted order. Use: Min Heap of Size K Pattern Recognition Whenever you see: Top K K Largest K Smallest Think: Heap Optimal Approach Step 1: Cou...