How to find max. and min. in array using minimum comparisons?

Question

This is a interview question: given an array of integers find the max. and min. using minimum comparisons.

Obviously, I can loop over the array twice and use ~

Answer 1

A somewhat different approach, which uses integer arithmetic instead of comparisons (which wasn't explicitly prohibited)

for(int i=0;i>31;
  xmax += x[i]-xmax & xmax-x[i]>>31;
}