--- title: Day 161 of Learning Java & DSA: Solving the Largest... description: A learning journal entry covering the Largest Rectangle in a Histogram problem solved using a stack-based approach in Java. The post explains the brute force... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/day-161-of-learning-java-dsa-solving-the-largest-rectangle-in-a-histogram-using-stack-jor441hlb twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Day 161 of Learning Java & DSA: Solving the Largest Rectangle in a Histogram Using Stack | daily.dev og:description: A learning journal entry covering the Largest Rectangle in a Histogram problem solved using a stack-based approach in Java. The post explains the brute force... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/day-161-of-learning-java-dsa-solving-the-largest-rectangle-in-a-histogram-using-stack-jor441hlb og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/JOR441HlB.png og:image:alt: Day 161 of Learning Java & DSA: Solving the Largest Rectangle in a Histogram Using Stack og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Day 161 of Learning Java & DSA: Solving the Largest Rectangle in a Histogram Using Stack **[Medium](https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js)** · 5 min read · 8 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A learning journal entry covering the Largest Rectangle in a Histogram problem solved using a stack-based approach in Java. The post explains the brute force O(n²) approach, then walks through the optimized O(n) stack solution that stores bar indices and calculates rectangle widths by identifying previous and next smaller elements. Includes a full Java implementation with complexity analysis. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How do you solve the largest rectangle in histogram problem efficiently using a stack? Use a stack to store indices of histogram bars in increasing order of height. When a smaller bar appears, pop taller bars from the stack and compute the area they could form, using the current index and the new stack top to determine width. Each bar is pushed and popped only once, giving O(n) time and O(n) space complexity, compared to the brute-force approach that repeatedly rechecks bars. _daily.dev surfaces algorithm walkthroughs like this stack-based histogram solution for interview prep._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Day 159 of Learning Java & DSA: Solving the Next Greater Element Problem Using Stack](https://daily.dev/posts/day-159-of-learning-java-dsa-solving-the-next-greater-element-problem-using-stack-gym9ay3xs) · Medium · 2 upvotes · 1 comments - [Day 160 of Learning Java & DSA: Solving the Stock Span Problem Using Stack](https://daily.dev/posts/day-160-of-learning-java-dsa-solving-the-stock-span-problem-using-stack-cygwwuyry) · Medium · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Spatial DP: Finding the Largest Square — Monday Morning Haskell](https://daily.dev/posts/spatial-dp-finding-the-largest-square-monday-morning-haskell-owyi7epbd) · Monday Morning Haskell · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Day 163 of Learning Java & DSA: Reversing a Stack Using Recursion](https://daily.dev/posts/day-163-of-learning-java-dsa-reversing-a-stack-using-recursion-boqmy7s0r) · Medium · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#java](https://daily.dev/tags/java), [#algorithms](https://daily.dev/tags/algorithms), [#data-structures](https://daily.dev/tags/data-structures), [#dynamic-programming](https://daily.dev/tags/dynamic-programming) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/day-161-of-learning-java-dsa-solving-the-largest-rectangle-in-a-histogram-using-stack-jor441hlb) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Day 161 of Learning Java & DSA: Solving the Largest Rectangle in a Histogram Using Stack","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/day-161-of-learning-java-dsa-solving-the-largest-rectangle-in-a-histogram-using-stack-jor441hlb","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/day-161-of-learning-java-dsa-solving-the-largest-rectangle-in-a-histogram-using-stack-jor441hlb"},"datePublished":"2026-07-24T03:13:27.485Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T07:01:47.559Z","description":"A learning journal entry covering the Largest Rectangle in a Histogram problem solved using a stack-based approach in Java. 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When a smaller bar appears, pop taller bars from the stack and compute the area they could form, using the current index and the new stack top to determine width. Each bar is pushed and popped only once, giving O(n) time and O(n) space complexity, compared to the brute-force approach that repeatedly rechecks bars. daily.dev surfaces algorithm walkthroughs like this stack-based histogram solution for interview prep."}}]} ```