Solution: Circular Array Loop

Let's solve the Circular Array Loop problem using the Fast and Slow Pointers pattern.

Statement

There is a circular list of non-zero integers called nums. Each number in the list tells you how many steps to move forward or backward from your current position:

  • If nums[i] is positive, move nums[i] steps forward.

  • If nums[i] is negative, move nums[i] steps backward.

As the list is circular:

  • Moving forward from the last element takes you back to the first element.

  • Moving backward from the first element takes you to the last element.

A cycle in this list means:

  1. You keep moving according to the numbers, and you end up repeating a sequence of indexes.

  2. All numbers in the cycle have the same sign (either all positive or all negative).

  3. The cycle length is greater than 1 (it involves at least two indexes).

Return true if such a cycle exists in the list or false otherwise.

Constraints:

  • 11 \leq nums.length 103\leq 10^3
  • 5000-5000 \leq nums[i] 5000\leq 5000
...