Average Salary Excluding the Minimum and Maximum Salary

Average Salary Excluding the Minimum and Maximum Salary - Problem

Array Sorting Easy

You are given an array of unique integers salary where salary[i] is the salary of the i-th employee.

Return the average salary of employees excluding the minimum and maximum salary. Answers within 10^-5 of the actual answer will be accepted.

Input & Output

Example 1 — Basic Case

$ Input: salary = [4000,3000,1000,2000]

› Output: 2500.0

💡 Note: Minimum salary is 1000, maximum salary is 4000. Average of remaining salaries: (3000 + 2000) / 2 = 2500.0

Example 2 — Minimum Size

$ Input: salary = [1000,2000,3000]

› Output: 2000.0

💡 Note: Minimum salary is 1000, maximum salary is 3000. Average of remaining salaries: 2000 / 1 = 2000.0

Example 3 — Larger Array

$ Input: salary = [8000,9000,2000,3000,6000,1000]

› Output: 4250.0

💡 Note: Minimum salary is 1000, maximum salary is 9000. Average of remaining: (8000+2000+3000+6000) / 4 = 4250.0

Constraints

3 ≤ salary.length ≤ 100
1000 ≤ salary[i] ≤ 10⁶
All the integers of salary are unique

Visualization

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Understanding the Visualization

Input

Array of unique salary values

Process

Identify and exclude minimum and maximum salaries

Output

Average of remaining salaries

Key Takeaway

🎯 Key Insight: We only need to find min and max values to exclude them, no need to sort the entire array

Asked in

🍎 Apple 15 🏢 Microsoft 12

The key insight is that we only need to find the minimum and maximum salaries to exclude them from the average calculation. The optimal approach uses a single pass to track min, max, and total sum simultaneously. Time: O(n), Space: O(1)

Common Approaches

Approach	Time	Space	Notes
✓ Sort and Remove Extremes	O(n log n)	O(1)	Sort the array, remove first and last elements, then calculate average
Single Pass with Min/Max Tracking	O(n)	O(1)	Find min, max, and total sum in one pass, then calculate average

Sort and Remove Extremes — Algorithm Steps

Sort the salary array in ascending order
Remove the first element (minimum) and last element (maximum)
Calculate average of remaining elements

Visualization

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Step-by-Step Walkthrough

Sort Array

Sort salaries in ascending order

Remove Extremes

Exclude first (min) and last (max) elements

Calculate Average

Sum remaining elements and divide by count

Code -

solution.c — C

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>

int compare(const void *a, const void *b) {
    return (*(int*)a - *(int*)b);
}

double solution(int* salary, int n) {
    qsort(salary, n, sizeof(int), compare);
    int total = 0;
    for (int i = 1; i < n - 1; i++) {
        total += salary[i];
    }
    return (double) total / (n - 2);
}

int main() {
    char line[1000];
    fgets(line, sizeof(line), stdin);
    int salary[1000];
    int n = 0;
    char *token = strtok(line + 1, ",]");
    while (token != NULL) {
        salary[n++] = atoi(token);
        token = strtok(NULL, ",]");
    }
    double result = solution(salary, n);
    printf("%f\n", result);
    return 0;
}

Time & Space Complexity

Time Complexity

⏱️

O(n log n)

Sorting the array takes O(n log n) time

⚡ Linearithmic

Space Complexity

O(1)

Only using constant extra space for variables

✓ Linear Space

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Smart Actions

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Input & Output

Constraints

Visualization

Related Problems

Common Approaches

Sort and Remove Extremes — Algorithm Steps

Visualization

Code -

Time & Space Complexity

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