Data Structures & Algorithms Interview Questions

Tiago R. - "function isValid(s) { const stack = []; for (let i=0; i < s.length; i++) { const char = s.charAt(i); if (['(', '{', '['].includes(char)) { stack.push(char); } else { const top = stack.pop(); if ((char === ')' && top !== '(') || (char === '}' && top !== '{') || (char === ']' && top !== '[')) { return false; } } } return stack.length === 0"See full answer

Teddy Y. - "class Node: def init(self, value): self.value = value self.children = [] def inorder_traversal(root): if not root: return [] result = [] n = len(root.children) for i in range(n): result.extend(inorder_traversal(root.children[i])) if i == n // 2: result.append(root.value) if n == 0: result.append(root.value) return result Example usage: root = Node(1) child1 = Node(2) chil"See full answer

Gabriele G. - "DFS with check of an already seen node in the graph would work from collections import deque, defaultdict from typing import List def iscourseloopdfs(idcourse: int, graph: defaultdict[list]) -> bool: stack = deque([(id_course)]) seen_courses = set() while stack: print(stack) curr_course = stack.pop() if currcourse in seencourses: return True seencourses.add(currcourse) for dependency in graph[curr_course]: "See full answer

Avon T. - "Initialize left pointer: Set a left pointer left to 0. Iterate through the array: Iterate through the array from left to right. If the current element is not 0, swap it with the element at the left pointer and increment left. Time complexity: O(n). The loop iterates through the entire array once, making it linear time. Space complexity: O(1). The algorithm operates in-place, modifying the input array directly without using additional data structures. "See full answer

Praveen D. - "Let me try to explain it with simple life analogy You're cooking dinner in the kitchen. Multithreading is when you've got a bunch of friends helping out. Each friend does a different job—like one chops veggies while another stirs a sauce. Everyone focuses on their task, and together, you all make the meal faster. In a computer, it's like different jobs happening all at once, making stuff happen quicker, just like having lots of friends helping makes dinner ready faster."See full answer

Tiago R. - "function mostCommonWords(text) { const frequencyTable = new Map(); const words = text.toLowerCase().replace(//g, '').split(' '); for (let word of words) { frequencyTable.set(word, (frequencyTable.get(word) || 0)+1); } frequencyTable.delete(''); return [...frequencyTable.entries()].sort(([w1, f1], [w2, f2]) => f2-f1 !== 0? f2-f1 : w1.charCodeAt(0)-w2.charCodeAt(0) ); } `"See full answer

Bless M. - "You can ask some clarifying questions like 1) Ask if the list is already sorted or not 2) is zero included in the list ? 3) Natural numbers are usually positive numbers ( clarify they are non negatives) Solution : 1) If sorted use two pointers and sort them in O(N) 2) if not sorted , -ve / only +ve numbers in the list doesn't matter - the easiest solution is Use a priority queue and push the number and its square in each iteration Finally return the list returned by the priority Queue. N"See full answer

Rahul J. - "find total sum. assign that to rightsum traverse from left to right: keep updating left sum and right sum, when they match return the index. else if you reach end return -1 or not found"See full answer

Sachin R. - "If 0's aren't a concern, couldn't we just multiply all numbers. and then divide product by each number in the list ? if there's more than one zero, then we just return an array of 0s if there's one zero, then we just replace 0 with product and rest 0s. what am i missing?"See full answer

Rick E. - " from typing import List one pass O(n) def find_duplicates(arr1: List[int], arr2: List[int]) -> List[int]: duplicates = [] i1 = i2 = 0 while i1 < len(arr1) and i2 < len(arr2): if arr1[i1] == arr2[i2]: duplicates.append(arr1[i1]) i2 += 1 i1 += 1 return duplicates debug your code below print(find_duplicates([1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7], [3, 6, 7, 8, 20])) `"See full answer

Gabriele G. - "Without using a recursive approach, one can perform a post-order traversal by removing the parent nodes from the stack only if children were visited: def diameterOfTree(root): if root is None: return 0 diameter = 0 stack = deque([[root, False]]) # (node, visited) node_heights = {} while stack: curr_node, visited = stack[-1] if visited: heightleft = nodeheights.get(curr_node.left, 0) heightright = nodehe"See full answer

Tiago R. - "function serialize(list) { for (let i=0; i 0xFFFF) { throw new Exception(String ${list[i]} is too long!); } const prefix = String.fromCharCode(length); list[i] = ${prefix}${list[i]}; console.log(list[i]) } return list.join(''); } function deserialize(s) { let i=0; const length = s.length; const output = []; while (i < length) { "See full answer

Laksitha R. - "public static int maxProfitGreedy(int[] stockPrices) { int maxProfit = 0; for(int i = 1; i todayPrice) { maxProfit += tomorrowPrice - todayPrice; } } return maxProfit; } "See full answer

Matthew K. - " function climbStairs(n) { // 4 iterations of Dynamic Programming solutions: // Step 1: Recursive: // if (n <= 2) return n // return climbStairs(n-1) + climbStairs(n-2) // Step 2: Top-down Memoization // const memo = {0:0, 1:1, 2:2} // function f(x) { // if (x in memo) return memo[x] // memo[x] = f(x-1) + f(x-2) // return memo[x] // } // return f(n) // Step 3: Bottom-up Tabulation // const tab = [0,1,2] // f"See full answer

Batman X. - "def friend_distance(friends, userA, userB): step = 0 total_neighs = set() llen = len(total_neighs) total_neighs.add(userB) while len(total_neighs)!=llen: s = set() step += 1 llen = len(total_neighs) for el in total_neighs: nes = neighbours(friends, userA, el) if userA in nes: return step for p in nes: s.add(p) for el in s: total_neighs.add(el) return -1 def neighbours(A,n1, n2): out = set() for i in range(len(A[n2])): if An2: out.add(i) return out"See full answer

Stanley Y. - "First of all, stack and heap memory are abstraction on top of the hardware by the compiler. The hardware is not aware of stack and heap memory. There is only a single piece of memory that a program has access to. The compiler creates the concepts of stack and heap memory to run the programs efficiently. Programs use stack memory to store local variables and a few important register values such as frame pointer and return address for program counter. This makes it easier for the compiler to gene"See full answer