Given is an array of integers. Each number in the array repeats an ODD number of times, but only 1 number is repeated for an EVEN number of times. Find that number.
I was thinking a hash map, with each element’s count. It requires O(n) space. Is there a better way?
Hash-map is fine, but all you need to store is each element’s count modulo 2.
All of those will end up being 1 (odd) except for the 0 (even) -count element.
(As Aleks G says you don’t need to use arithmetic (
count++ %2), only xor (count ^= 0x1); although any compiler will optimize that anyway.)