Interview question: minimum number of swaps to make couples sit together - algorithm

Question

This is an interview question, and the problem description is as follows:
There are n couples sitting in a row with 2n seats. Find the minimum number of swaps to make everyone sit next on his/her partner. For example, 0 and 1 are couple, and 2 and 3 are couple. Originally they are sitting in a row in this order: [2, 0, 1, 3]. The minimum number of swaps is 1, for example swapping 2 with 1.
I know there is a greedy solution for this problem. You just need to scan the array from left to right. Every time you see an unmatched pair, you swap the first person of the pair to his/her correct position. For example, in the above example for pair [2, 0], you will directly swap 2 with 1. There is no need to try swapping 0 with 3.
But I don't really understand why this works. One of the proofs I saw was something like this:
Consider a simple example: 7 1 4 6 2 3 0 5. At first step we have two choices to match the first couple: swap 7 with 0, or swap 1 with 6. Then we get 0 1 4 6 2 3 7 5 or 7 6 4 1 2 3 0 5. Pay attention that the first couple doesn't count any more. For the later part it is composed of 4 X 2 3 Y 5 (X=6 Y=7 or X=1 Y=0). Since different couples are unrelated, we don't care X Y is 6 7 pair or 0 1 pair. They are equivalent! Thus it means our choice doesn't count.
I feel that this is very reasonable but not compelling enough. In my opinion we have to prove that X and Y are couple in all possible cases and don't know how. Can anyone give a hint? Thanks!

Answer 1

I've split the problem into 3 examples. A's are a pair and so are B's in all examples. Note that throughout the examples a match requires that elements are adjacent and the first element occupy an index that satisfies index%2 = 0. An array looking like this [X A1 A2 ...] does not satisfy this condition, however this does [X Y A1 A2 ...]. The examples also do not look to the left at all, because looking to the left of A2 below is the same as looking to the right of A1.
First example
There's an even number of elements between two unmatched pairs:
A1 B1 ..2k.. A2 B2 .. for any number k in {0, 1, 2, ..} meaning A1 B1 A2 B2 .. is just a another case.
Both can be matched in one swap:
A1 A2 ..2k.. B1 B2 .. or B2 B1 ..2k.. A2 A1 ..
Order is not important, so it doesn't matter which pair is first. Once the pairs are matched, there will be no more swapping involving either pair. Finding A2 based on A1 will result in the same amount of swaps as finding B2 based on B1.
Second example
There's an odd number of elements between two pairs (2k + the element C):
A1 B1 ..2k.. C A2 B2 D .. (A1 B1 ..2k.. C B2 A2 D .. is identical)
Both cannot be matched in one swap, but like before it doesn't matter which pair is first nor if the matched pair is in the beginning or in the middle part of the array, so all these possible swaps are equally valid, and none of them creates more swaps later on:
A1 A2 ..2k .. C B1 B2 D .. or B2 B1 ..2k.. C A2 A1 D .. Note that the last pair is not matched
C B1 ..2k.. A1 A2 B2 D .. or A1 D ..2k.. C A2 B2 B1 .. Here we're not matching the first pair.
The important thing about this is that in each case, only one pair is matched and none of the elements of that pair will need to be swapped again. The result of the remaining non-matched pair are either one of:
..2k.. C B1 B2 D ..
..2k.. C A2 A1 D ..
C B1 ..2k.. B2 D ..
A1 D ..2k.. C A2 ..
They are clearly equivalent in terms of swaps needed to match the remaining A's or B's.
Third example
This is logically identical to the second. Both B1/A2 and A2/B2 can have any number of elements between them. No matter how elements are swapped, only one pair can be matched. m1 and m2 are arbitrary number of elements. Note that elements X and Y are just the elements surrounding B2, and they're only used to illustrate the example:
A1 B1 ..m1.. A2 ..m2.. X B2 Y .. (A1 B1 ..m1.. B2 ..m2.. X A2 Y .. is identical)
Again both pairs cannot be matched in one swap, but it's not important which pair is matched, or where the matched pair position is:
A1 A2 ..m1.. B1 ..m2.. X B2 Y .. or B2 B1 ..m1.. A2 ..m2.. X A1 Y .. Note that the last pair is not matched
A1 X ..m1.. A2 ..m2-1.. B1 B2 Y .. or A1 Y ..m1.. A2 ..m2.. X B2 B1.. depending on position of B2. Here we're not matching the first pair.
Matching the pair around A2 is equivalent, but omitted.
As in the second example, one swap can also be matching a pair in the beginning or in the middle of the array, but either choice doesn't change that only one pair is matched. Nor does it change the remaining amount of unmatched pairs.
A little analysis
Keeping in mind that matched pairs drop out of the list of unmatched/problem pairs, the list of unmatched pairs are either one fewer or two fewer pairs for each swap. Since it's not important which pair drops out of the problem, it might as well be the first. In that case we can assume that pairs to the left of the cursor/current index are all matched. And that we only need to match the first pair, unless it's already matched by coincidence and the cursor is then rightfully moved.
It becomes even more clear if the above examples are looked at with the cursor being at the second unmatched pair, instead of the first. It still doesn't matter which pairs are swapped for the amount of total swaps needed. So there's no need to try to match pairs in the middle. The resulting amount of swaps are the same.
The only time two pairs can be matched with only one swap are those in the first example. There is no way to match two pairs in one swap in any other setup. Looking at the result of the swap in the second and third examples, it also becomes clear that none of the results have any advantage to any of the others and that each result becomes a new problem that can be described as one of the three cases (two cases really, because second and third are equivalent in terms of match-able pairs).
Optimal swapping
There is no way to modify the array to prepare it for more optimal swapping later on. Either a swap will match one or two pairs, or it will count as a swap with no matches:
Looking at this: A1 B1 ..2k.. C B2 ... A2 ...
Swap to prepare for optimal swap:
A1 B1 ..2k.. A2 B2 ... C ... no matches
A1 A2 ..2k.. B1 B2 ... C ... two in one
Greedy swap:
B2 B1 ..2k.. C A1 ... A2 ... one
B2 B1 ..2k.. A2 A1 ... C ... one
Un-matching pairs
Pairs already matched will not become unmatched because that would require that:
For A1 B1 ..2k.. C A2 B2 D ..
C is identical to A1 or
D is identical to B1
either of which is impossible.
Likewise with A1 B1 ..m1.. (Z) A2 (V) ..m2.. X B2 Y ..
Or it would require that matched pairs are shifted one (or any odd number of) index inside the array. That's also not possible, because we always ever swap, so the array elements aren't being shifted at all.

Answer 2

[Edited for clarity 4-Mar-2020.]
There is no point doing a swap which does not put (at least) one couple together. To do so would add 1 to the swap count and leave us with the same number of unpaired couples.
So, each time we do a swap, we put one couple together leaving at most n-1 couples. Repeating the process we end up with 1 pair, who must by then be a couple. So, the worst case must be n-1 swaps.
Clearly, we can ignore couples who are already together.
Clearly, where we have two pairs a:B b:A, one swap will create the two couples a:A b:B.
And if we have m pairs a:Q b:A c:B ... q:P -- where the m pairs are a "disjoint subset" (or cycle) of couples, m-1 swaps will put them into couples.
So: the minimum number of swaps is going to be n - s where s is the number of "disjoint subsets" (and s >= 1). [A subset may, of course, contain just one couple.]
Interestingly, there is nothing clever you can do to reduce the number of swaps. Provided every swap creates a couple you will do the minimum number.
If you wanted to arrange each couple in height order as well, things may or may not be more interesting.
FWIW: having shown that you cannot do better than n-1 swaps for each disjoint set of n couples, the trick then is to avoid the O(n^2) search for each swap. That can be done relatively straightforwardly by keeping a vector with one entry per person, giving where they are currently sat. Then in one scan you pick up each person and if you know where their partner is sat, swap down to make a pair, and update the location of the person swapped up.

Answer 3

I will swap every even positioned member,
if he/she doesn't sit besides his/her partner.
Even positioned means array indexed 1, 3, 5 and so on.
The couples are [even, odd] pair. For example [0, 1], [2, 3], [4, 5] and so on.
The loop will be like that:
for(i=1; i<n*2; i+=2) // when n = # of couples.
Now, we will check i-th and (i-1)-th index member. If they are not couple, then we will look for the partner of (i-1)-th member and once we have it, we should swap it with i-th member.
For an example, say at i=1, we got 6, now if (i-1)-th element is 7 then they form a couple (if (i-1)-th element is 5 then [5, 6] is not a couple.) and we don't need any swap, otherwise we should look for the partner of (i-1)-th element and will swap with i-th element. So, (i-1)-th and i-th will form a couple.
It ensure that we need to check only half of the total members, that means, n.
And, for any non-matched couple, we need a linear search from i-th position to the rest of the array. Which is O(2n), eventually O(n).
So, the overall technique complexity will be O(n^2).
In worst case, minimum swap will be n-1. (this is maximum as well).
Very straightforward. If you need help to code, let us know.