Data Structures & Algorithms June 26, 2020 2 min read

Leetcode Find the Duplicate Number Java Solution

// SOLVING THIS WITH AN AI ASSISTANT (2026)

If you are working through this problem with an AI coding assistant — Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor chat, Gemini, GitHub Copilot, Aider, or any agent — the goal isn’t to ask for the answer. It is to use the tool to understand the pattern. The prompt sequence I’d run:

Spec it back to me first. “In your own words, what is this problem actually testing? What’s the smallest example that fails the naive approach?”
Brute-force first, optimize after. “Write the simplest correct solution, even if it’s O(n²). Don’t optimize. Just make it correct, with comments explaining each step.”
Ask for the upgrade. “Now show me the optimal solution. What insight makes it possible? What pattern is this an instance of?”
Stress-test it. “Generate 10 edge cases — empty input, single element, duplicates, max size, sorted, reverse-sorted. Run my solution against each.”

The pattern matters more than the answer. If the agent just hands you optimized code, you’ve trained yourself to lose interviews.

Given an array nums containing n + 1 integers where each integer is between 1 and n (inclusive), prove that at least one duplicate number must exist. Assume that there is only one duplicate number, find the duplicate one.

Example 1:

Input: [1,3,4,2,2]
Output: 2

Example 2:

Input: [3,1,3,4,2]
Output: 3

Note:

You must not modify the array (assume the array is read only).
You must use only constant, O(1) extra space.
Your runtime complexity should be less than O(n²).
There is only one duplicate number in the array, but it could be repeated more than once.

Solution: We will solve this using Two pointers the brute force solution would be looping twice to find the duplicate which will take O(n²).

class HackerHeap {
    public int findDuplicate(int[] nums) {
        int slow = 0;
        int fast = 0;  
        do{
            slow = nums[slow];
            fast = nums[nums[fast]];
        }while(slow!=fast);
        
        int find =0;
        
        while(find!=slow){
            find = nums[find];
            slow = nums[slow];
        }  
        return find;
    }
}

For the AI-native engineering side of HackerHeap — building MCP servers, comparing agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Codex, Gemini, Copilot), and weekly working code — see the Friday Build newsletter and the MCP archive.