class Solution {
public:
    vector<int> sortedSquares(vector<int>& nums) {
        vector<int> sorted(nums.size());
        int sortedIndex = 0;
        int leftIndex, rightIndex;
        int i = 0;
        while (i < nums.size() && nums[i] < 0)  i++;                // Searching the first element in nums that
        rightIndex = i;                                             // is not negative.
        leftIndex = i - 1;
        while (leftIndex >=0 || rightIndex < nums.size()) {         // Starting from the first not negative
            if (leftIndex >=0  &&  rightIndex < nums.size()) {      // number; rightIndex goes right; left
                int a = nums[leftIndex] * nums[leftIndex];          // index goes left; counting the squares of 
                int b = nums[rightIndex] * nums[rightIndex];        // nums[rightIndex] and nums[leftIndex] and
                if (b <=a) {                                        // putting the smaller number into the
                    sorted[sortedIndex] = b;                        // result array 'sorted'.
                    sortedIndex++;
                    rightIndex++;
                }
                 else {
                    sorted[sortedIndex] = a;
                    sortedIndex++;
                    leftIndex--;
                 }
            } else if (leftIndex < 0) {                             // Handling the case when leftIndex reached
                    int b = nums[rightIndex] * nums[rightIndex];    // the beginning of the array 'nums'.
                    sorted[sortedIndex] = b;
                    sortedIndex++;
                    rightIndex++;
            } else {                                                // Handling the case when rightIndex reached
                    int a = nums[leftIndex] * nums[leftIndex];      // the end of the array 'nums'.
                    sorted[sortedIndex] = a;
                    sortedIndex++;
                    leftIndex--;   
            }            
        }
       
        return sorted;
    }
};