Good morning! Here's our prompt for today.

We have an array of length 2 * n (even length) that consists of random integers.

[1, 3, 2, 6, 5, 4]

We are asked to create pairs out of these integers, like such:

[[1, 3], [2, 6], [5, 4]]

How can we divide up the pairs such that the sum of smaller integers in each pair is maximized?

Here's an example input: [3, 4, 2, 5]. The return value is 6 because the maximum sum of pairs is 6 = min(2, 3) + min(4, 5).

Note that negative numbers may also be included.

Constraints

• Length of the array <= 100000
• The values will always contain integer values between -1000 and 1000
• The final answer will always fit in the integer value
• Expected time complexity : O(nlogn)
• Expected space complexity : O(1)

Try to solve this here or in Interactive Mode.

How do I practice this challenge?

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var assert = require('assert');

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function maxOfMinPairs(nums) {

  // fill in

  return nums;

}

​

console.log(maxOfMinPairs([1, 3, 2, 6, 5, 4]));

​

try {

  assert.equal(maxOfMinPairs([3, 4, 2, 5]), 6);

​

  console.log('PASSED: ' + 'maxOfMinPairs([3, 4, 2, 5]) should return 6');

} catch (err) {

  console.log(err);

}

​

try {

  assert.equal(maxOfMinPairs([1, 3, 2, 6, 5, 4]), 9);

​

  console.log('PASSED: ' + 'maxOfMinPairs([1, 3, 2, 6, 5, 4]) should return 9');

} catch (err) {

  console.log(err);

}

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Here's our guided, illustrated walk-through.

How do I use this guide?