Squares of a sorted array

class Solution:
    def sortedSquares(self, nums: List[int]) -> List[int]:
        left = 0
        right = len(nums) - 1
        res = []
        while left <= right:
            if abs(nums[left]) > abs(nums[right]):
                res.append(nums[left] ** 2)
                left += 1
            else:
                res.append(nums[right] ** 2)
                right -= 1

        return res[::-1]

Squares of a Sorted Array

Difficulty: Easy


Given an integer array nums sorted in non-decreasing order, return an array of the squares of each number sorted in non-decreasing order.

 

Example 1:

Input: nums = [-4,-1,0,3,10]
Output: [0,1,9,16,100]
Explanation: After squaring, the array becomes [16,1,0,9,100].
After sorting, it becomes [0,1,9,16,100].

Example 2:

Input: nums = [-7,-3,2,3,11]
Output: [4,9,9,49,121]

 

Constraints:

  • 1 <= nums.length <= 104
  • -104 <= nums[i] <= 104
  • nums is sorted in non-decreasing order.

 

Follow up: Squaring each element and sorting the new array is very trivial, could you find an O(n) solution using a different approach?