The max product of consecutive elements in an array

Question

I was asked this algorithm question during my onsite interview. Since I was not asked to sign NDA, I post it here for an answer.

Given an array of REAL

Answer 1

You can implement a variant of the Kadane algorithm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_subarray_problem) who runs with constant extra memory and linear in the size of the problem (no extra array,...)

If only strict positive numbers are given:

def max_subarray_mul(A):
    max_ending_here = max_so_far = 1
    for x in A:
        if x > 0
            max_ending_here = max(1,max_ending_here*x)
            max_so_far = max(max_so_far, max_ending_here)
    return max_so_far

I'm still working on the part with negative numbers

Or a more expensive (in time) method is the following, but this will work with negative numbers:

def max_subarray_mul(A):
    max_so_far = 1
    n = length(A)
    for i in 1...n:
        x = A[i]
        tmp = x
        max_so_far = max(max_so_far,tmp)
        for j in i+1...n:
          tmp = tmp*A[j]
          max_so_far = max(max_so_far,tmp)
    return max_so_far

Which runs in constant memory and O(n²) time