In the provided PHP code snippet, what improvements can be made to optimize the ranking algorithm for efficiency and accuracy?
The issue with the current ranking algorithm is that it uses nested loops to compare every element with every other element, resulting in a time complexity of O(n^2). To optimize the algorithm for efficiency and accuracy, we can use a more efficient sorting algorithm like quicksort to sort the array based on the scores before assigning ranks. This will reduce the time complexity to O(n log n) and provide a more accurate ranking based on the scores.
function rankScores($scores) {
$sortedScores = $scores;
arsort($sortedScores); // Sort scores in descending order
$rank = 1;
$prevScore = null;
$rankedScores = [];
foreach ($sortedScores as $name => $score) {
if ($score !== $prevScore) {
$rankedScores[$name] = $rank;
}
$prevScore = $score;
$rank++;
}
return $rankedScores;
}
// Example usage
$scores = [
"Alice" => 85,
"Bob" => 92,
"Charlie" => 78,
"David" => 92
];
$rankedScores = rankScores($scores);
print_r($rankedScores);