Java Programming – Partition Problem
Partition problem is to determine whether a given set can be partitioned into two subsets such that the sum of elements in both subsets is same.
Examples
arr[] = {1, 5, 11, 5}
Output: true
The array can be partitioned as {1, 5, 5} and {11}
arr[] = {1, 5, 3}
Output: false
The array cannot be partitioned into equal sum sets.
Following are the two main steps to solve this problem:
- Calculate sum of the array. If sum is odd, there can not be two subsets with equal sum, so return false.
- If sum of array elements is even, calculate sum/2 and find a subset of array with sum equal to sum/2.
The first step is simple. The second step is crucial, it can be solved either using recursion or Dynamic Programming.
[ad type=”banner”]Recursive Solution
Following is the recursive property of the second step mentioned above.
et isSubsetSum(arr, n, sum/2) be the function that returns true if
there is a subset of arr[0..n-1] with sum equal to sum/2
The isSubsetSum problem can be divided into two subproblems
a) isSubsetSum() without considering last element
(reducing n to n-1)
b) isSubsetSum considering the last element
(reducing sum/2 by arr[n-1] and n to n-1)
If any of the above the above subproblems return true, then return true.
isSubsetSum (arr, n, sum/2) = isSubsetSum (arr, n-1, sum/2) ||
isSubsetSum (arr, n-1, sum/2 - arr[n-1])
Output :
Can be divided into two subsets of equal sum
Time Complexity: O(2^n) In worst case, this solution tries two possibilities (whether to include or exclude) for every element.
[ad type=”banner”]Dynamic Programming Solution
The problem can be solved using dynamic programming when the sum of the elements is not too big. We can create a 2D array part[][] of size (sum/2)*(n+1). And we can construct the solution in bottom up manner such that every filled entry has following property
part[i][j] = true if a subset of {arr[0], arr[1], ..arr[j-1]} has sum
equal to i, otherwise false
Output :
Can be divided into two subsets of equal sum
Following diagram shows the values in partition table.



