How to check if there exists an element in a list less than equal to element in another list

Consider two Array list

a = [1,4,2,4] 

b = [3,5] 

I wanted to return the count of numbers for each number in B less than equal to number in A.

So the answer would be [2,4] since 3 in B has 2 numbers in A that are <= 3 i.e. [1,2]

And 5 in B has 4 numbers in A that are <= 5 . i.e [1,4,2,4]

Note: i tried using 2 loops but testcases time out.

this is the code

static ArrayList<Integer> counting(ArrayList<Integer>A, ArrayList<Integer>B)   
{
     
    ArrayList<Integer> finallist = new ArrayList<>();

    for(int i : B)
    { 
        int count = 0;
        for(int j: A)
        {
            if(j<=i)
                count++;

           
        }
         finallist.add(count);
    }

    return finallist;
}

we were supposed to edit the function and return arraylist

What I understood from Your question was You weren't able to find the answer.
Hope this can help you.

Your code had a problem in counting function parameter, you should declare what is the data type that you are expecting.
static ArrayList counting(List A, List B) this isn't a way
instead you should have wrote static ArrayList counting(ArrayList<Integer> A, ArrayList<Integer> B)

and that will fix your problem.

here's my solution:

Counting function.

private static ArrayList counting(ArrayList<Integer>A, ArrayList<Integer>B ){
	ArrayList<Integer> finallist = new ArrayList<>();
	
	for(int i : B) {
		int count = 0;
		for(int j : A) {
			if(j <= i) {
				count++;
			}
		}
		finallist.add(count);
	}
	
	return finallist;
}

Main from where am calling counting:

ArrayList<Integer> ans = counting(A,B);
		for(int i : ans) {
			System.out.print(i+" ");
		}

Output:

2 4 

This could resolve the issue you are facing.

When I see an array and I need find smth. in it, so this is a magic key to use binary search. This gives you O(n log n) time complexity.

public static int[] findLessNumbers(int[] a, int[] b) {
    TreeMap<Integer, Integer> numCount = new TreeMap<>();

    for (int aa : a)
        numCount.put(aa, numCount.getOrDefault(aa, 0) + aa);

    int total = 0;

    for (Map.Entry<Integer, Integer> entry : numCount.entrySet())
        numCount.put(entry.getKey(), total += entry.getValue());

    int[] res = new int[b.length];

    for (int i = 0; i < res.length; i++)
        res[i] = Optional.ofNullable(numCount.floorKey(b[i])).orElse(0);

    return res;
}