Find the Maximum Element in a Matrix

Find the largest integer present in a given R×C matrix by examining all elements

Understand the Problem

Problem Statement

You are given a matrix of size R×C containing integers. Write a program to find the maximum element present in the matrix.

Note: Make sure to read the input matrix correctly and find the maximum element in the matrix as specified in the question.

Constraints

2 ≤ R, C ≤ 50
1 ≤ Each integer value in the matrix ≤ 1000
The matrix will contain at least 4 elements (minimum 2×2)

Examples

Example 1

Input

3 4
5 10 25 8
12 9 7 6
11 14 18 22

Output

Explanation

The matrix contains elements [5,10,25,8,12,9,7,6,11,14,18,22]. The largest element among all these values is 25, which is located in the first row, third column.

Example 2

Input

Output

Explanation

The matrix contains elements [30,40,5,16,28,35,55,90,15,10,25,60]. The largest element among all these values is 90, which is located in the third row, second column.

Solution

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    int R, C;
    scanf("%d %d", &R, &C);
    
    // Initialize matrix with fixed size (constraints say max 50x50)
    int matrix[50][50];
    
    // Read matrix elements
    for (int i = 0; i < R; i++) {
        for (int j = 0; j < C; j++) {
            scanf("%d", &matrix[i][j]);
        }
    }
    
    // Initialize max_element with first element
    int max_element = matrix[0][0];
    
    // Find maximum element by iterating through all elements
    for (int i = 0; i < R; i++) {
        for (int j = 0; j < C; j++) {
            if (matrix[i][j] > max_element) {
                max_element = matrix[i][j];
            }
        }
    }
    
    // Output the result
    printf("%d\n", max_element);
    
    return 0;
}

Time:O(R×C) - We must examine each element exactly once

Space:O(R×C) - Space required to store the matrix

Approach:

This C solution starts by reading the matrix dimensions R and C. It then declares a fixed-size 2D array (50×50) based on the problem constraints and reads all matrix elements using nested loops.

The algorithm initializes max_element with the first element of the matrix. Then it uses nested loops to traverse every element in the matrix. For each element, it compares the current value with max_element and updates max_element if a larger value is found.

After examining all elements, it prints the maximum value. The solution uses standard C input/output functions and follows the typical pattern for matrix traversal in C.

Visual Explanation

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All Problems