Q1. There's a staircase with N steps, and you can climb 1 or 2 steps at a time.

Given N, write a function that returns the number of unique ways you can climb
the staircase. The order of the steps matters. [Amazon]

For example, if N is 4, then there are 5 unique ways:

1, 1, 1, 1
2, 1, 1
1, 2, 1
1, 1, 2
2, 2
*
What if, instead of being able to climb 1 or 2 steps at a time, you could climb
any number from a set of positive integers X? For example, if X = {1, 3, 5}, you
could climb 1, 3, or 5 steps at a time. Generalize your function to take in X.

Q2. Given an array of integers, return a new array such that each element at
index i of the new array is the product of all the numbers in the original array
except the one at i. [Uber]

For example, if our input was [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5], the expected output would be
[ 120, 60, 40, 30, 24]. If our input was [3, 2, 1], the expected output would be
[2, 3, 6].
*
What if you can't use division?

Q3. Given an array of integers that are out of order, determine the bounds of the
smallest window that must be sorted in order for the entire array to be sorted.
For example, given [3, 7, 5, 6, 9], you should return (1, 3)

Q4. Given an array of numbers: find the maximum sum of any contiguous
subarray of the array. For example, given the array [34, -50, 42, 14, -5, 86], the
maximum sum would be 137, since we would take elements 42, 14, -5, and 86.
Given the array [ -5, -1, -8, -9], the maximum sum would be 0, since we would
choose not to take any elements. Do this in O (n) time.
*
What if the elements can wrap around? For example, given [ 8, -1, 3, 4], return
15, as we choose the numbers 3, 4, and 8 where the 8 is obtained from wrapping
around.

Q5. Given an array of integers, return a new array where each element in the
new array is the number of smaller elements to the right of that element in the
original input array. For example, given the array [ 3, 4, 9, 6, 1], return [ 1, 1, 2,
1, 0], since: There is 1 smaller element to the right of 3, There is 1 smaller
element to the right of 4, There are 2 smaller elements to the right of 9, There is
1 smaller element to the right of 6, There are no smaller elements to the right of
1

Q6. Given a string, find the palindrome that can be made by inserting the fewest
number of characters as possible anywhere in the word. If there is more than
one palindrome of minimum length that can be made, return the
lexicographically earliest one (the first one alphabetically). [Quora]

For example, given the string "race", you should return "ecarace", since we can
add three letters to it (which is the smallest amount to make a palindrome).
There are seven other palindromes that can be made from "race" by adding three
letters, but "ecarace" comes first alphabetically.

As another example, given the string "google", you should return "elgoogle".

Q7. Compute the running median of a sequence of numbers. That is, given a
stream of numbers, print out the median of the list so far on each new element.
Recall that the median of an even-numbered list is the average of the two
middle numbers. [Microsoft]

For example, given the sequence [2, 1, 5, 7, 2, 0, 5], your algorithm should print
out:
2
1.5
2
3.5
2
2
2

Q8. Suppose you are given a table of currency exchange rates, represented as a
2D array. Determine whether there is a possible arbitrage: that is, whether there
is some sequence of trades you can make, starting with some amount A of any
currency, so that you can end up with some amount greater than A of that
currency. There are no transaction costs and you can trade fractional quantities.
[Jane Street]

Q9. The edit distance between two strings refers to the minimum number of
character insertions, deletions, and substitutions required to change one string to
the other. For example, the edit distance between “kitten” and “sitting” is three:
substitute the “k” for “s”, substitute the “e” for “i”, and append a “g”.
Given two strings, compute the edit distance between them. [Google]
Q10. You are given an array of non-negative integers that represents a two-
dimensional elevation map where each element is unit-width wall and the
integer is the height. Suppose it will rain and all spots between two walls get
filled up.

Compute how many units of water remain trapped on the map in O(N) time and
O(1) space. [Facebook]

For example, given the input [2, 1, 2], we can hold 1 unit of water in the middle.

Given the input [3, 0, 1, 3, 0, 5], we can hold 3 units in the first index, 2 in the
second, and 3 in the fourth index (we cannot hold 5 since it would run off to the
left), so we can trap 8 units of water.

Q11. Run-length encoding is a fast and simple method of encoding strings. The
basic idea is to represent repeated successive characters as a single count and
character. For example, the string "AAAABBBCCDAA" would be encoded as
"4A3B2C1D2A".

Implement run-length encoding and decoding. You can assume the string to be
encoded have no digits and consists solely of alphabetic characters. You can
assume the string to be decoded is valid. [Amazon]

Q12. Write an algorithm to justify text. Given a sequence of words and an

integer line length k, return a list of strings which represents each line, fully
justified.
More specifically, you should have as many words as possible in each line.
There should be at least one space between each word. Pad extra spaces when
necessary so that each line has exactly length k. Spaces should be distributed as
equally as possible, with the extra spaces, if any, distributed starting from the
left.

If you can only fit one word on a line, then you should pad the right-hand side
with spaces.

Each word is guaranteed not to be longer than k. [Palantir]

For example, given the list of words ["the", "quick", "brown", "fox", "jumps",
"over", "the", "lazy", "dog"] and k = 16, you should return the following:

["the quick brown", # 1 extra space on the left

"fox jumps over", # 2 extra spaces distributed evenly
"the lazy dog"] # 4 extra spaces distributed evenly

Q13. Given a string of round, curly, and square open and closing brackets,
return whether the brackets are balanced (well-formed). [Facebook]

For example, given the string "([])[]({})", you should return true.

Given the string "([)]" or "((()", you should return false.

Q14. Given a singly linked list and an integer k, remove the kth last element
from the list. k is guaranteed to be smaller than the length of the list. [Google]

The list is very long, so making more than one pass is prohibitively expensive.

Do this in constant space and in one pass.

Q15. Implement regular expression matching with the following special

characters:

. (period) which matches any single character

* (asterisk) which matches zero or more of the preceding element
That is, implement a function that takes in a string and a valid regular
expression and returns whether or not the string matches the regular expression.
[Facebook]

For example, given the regular expression "ra." and the string "ray", your
function should return true. The same regular expression on the string
"raymond" should return false.

Given the regular expression ".*at" and the string "chat", your function should
return true. The same regular expression on the string "chats" should return
false.

Q16. Implement locking in a binary tree. A binary tree node can be locked or
unlocked only if all of its descendants or ancestors are not locked.

Design a binary tree node class with the following methods:

 is_locked, which returns whether the node is locked

 lock, which attempts to lock the node. If it cannot be locked, then it
should return false. Otherwise, it should lock it and return true.
 unlock, which unlocks the node. If it cannot be unlocked, then it should
return false. Otherwise, it should unlock it and return true.
You may augment the node to add parent pointers or any other property you
would like. You may assume the class is used in a single-threaded program, so
there is no need for actual locks or mutexes. Each method should run in O(h),
where h is the height of the tree. [Google]

Q16. You are given an M by N matrix consisting of booleans that represents a

board. Each True boolean represents a wall. Each False boolean represents a tile
you can walk on.

Given this matrix, a start coordinate, and an end coordinate, return the minimum
number of steps required to reach the end coordinate from the start. If there is
no possible path, then return null. You can move up, left, down, and right. You
cannot move through walls. You cannot wrap around the edges of the board.
[Google]

For example, given the following board:

[[f, f, f, f],
[t, t, f, t],
[f, f, f, f],
[f, f, f, f]]
and start = (3, 0) (bottom left) and end = (0, 0) (top left), the minimum number
of steps required to reach the end is 7, since we would need to go through (1, 2)
because there is a wall everywhere else on the second row.

Q17. Given a dictionary of words and a string made up of those words (no
spaces), return the original sentence in a list. If there is more than one possible
reconstruction, return any of them. If there is no possible reconstruction, then
return null. [Microsoft]

For example, given the set of words 'quick', 'brown', 'the', 'fox', and the string
"thequickbrownfox", you should return ['the', 'quick', 'brown', 'fox'].

Given the set of words 'bed', 'bath', 'bedbath', 'and', 'beyond', and the string
"bedbathandbeyond", return either ['bed', 'bath', 'and', 'beyond] or ['bedbath',
'and', 'beyond'].

Q18. Given an array of time intervals (start, end) for classroom lectures
(possibly overlapping), find the minimum number of rooms required.
[Snapchat]

For example, given [(30, 75), (0, 50), (60, 150)], you should return 2.
Q19. Given two singly linked lists that intersect at some point, find the
intersecting node. The lists are non-cyclical. [Google]

For example, given A = 3 -> 7 -> 8 -> 10 and B = 99 -> 1 -> 8 -> 10, return the
node with value 8.

In this example, assume nodes with the same value are the exact same node
objects.

Do this in O(M + N) time (where M and N are the lengths of the lists) and
constant space.

Q20. A builder is looking to build a row of N houses that can be of K different

colors. He has a goal of minimizing cost while ensuring that no two neighboring
houses are of the same color. [Facebook]

Given an N by K matrix where the nth row and kth column represents the cost
to build the nth house with kth color, return the minimum cost which achieves
this goal.

Q21. Given an array of integers and a number k, where 1 <= k <= length of the
array, compute the maximum values of each subarray of length k. [Google]

For example, given array = [10, 5, 2, 7, 8, 7] and k = 3, we should get: [10, 7, 8,

8], since:

10 = max(10, 5, 2)
7 = max(5, 2, 7)
8 = max(2, 7, 8)
8 = max(7, 8, 7)
Do this in O(n) time and O(k) space. You can modify the input array in-place
and you do not need to store the results. You can simply print them out as you
compute them.

Q22. Suppose we represent our file system by a string in the following manner:

The string "dir\n\tsubdir1\n\tsubdir2\n\t\tfile.ext" represents:

dir
subdir1
subdir2
file.ext
The directory dir contains an empty sub-directory subdir1 and a sub-directory
subdir2 containing a file file.ext.

The string
"dir\n\tsubdir1\n\t\tfile1.ext\n\t\tsubsubdir1\n\tsubdir2\n\t\tsubsubdir2\n\t\t\
tfile2.ext" represents:

dir
subdir1
file1.ext
subsubdir1
subdir2
subsubdir2
file2.ext
The directory dir contains two sub-directories subdir1 and subdir2. subdir1
contains a file file1.ext and an empty second-level sub-directory subsubdir1.
subdir2 contains a second-level sub-directory subsubdir2 containing a file
file2.ext.

We are interested in finding the longest (number of characters) absolute path to

a file within our file system. For example, in the second example above, the
longest absolute path is "dir/subdir2/subsubdir2/file2.ext", and its length is 32
(not including the double quotes).

Given a string representing the file system in the above format, return the length
of the longest absolute path to a file in the abstracted file system. If there is no
file in the system, return 0. [Google]

Note:

The name of a file contains at least a period and an extension.

The name of a directory or sub-directory will not contain a period.

Q23. You run an e-commerce website and want to record the last N order ids in
a log. Implement a data structure to accomplish this, with the following API:

record(order_id): adds the order_id to the log

get_last(i): gets the ith last element from the log. i is guaranteed to be smaller
than or equal to N.
You should be as efficient with time and space as possible. [Twitter]
Q24. Given a stream of elements too large to store in memory, pick a random
element from the stream with uniform probability. [Facebook]

Q25. The area of a circle is defined as πr^2. Estimate π to 3 decimal places

using a Monte Carlo method. [Google]

Hint: The basic equation of a circle is x2 + y2 = r2.

Q26. Given an integer k and a string s, find the length of the longest substring
that contains at most k distinct characters. [Amazon]

For example, given s = "abcba" and k = 2, the longest substring with k distinct
characters is "bcb".

Q27. Implement an autocomplete system. That is, given a query string s and a
set of all possible query strings, return all strings in the set that have s as a
prefix. [Twitter]

For example, given the query string de and the set of strings [dog, deer, deal],
return [deer, deal].

Hint: Try preprocessing the dictionary into a more efficient data structure to
speed up queries.

Q28. Implement a job scheduler which takes in a function f and an integer n,

and calls f after n milliseconds. [Apple]

Q29. Given a list of integers, write a function that returns the largest sum of
non-adjacent numbers. Numbers can be 0 or negative. [Airbnb]

For example, [2, 4, 6, 2, 5] should return 13, since we pick 2, 6, and 5. [5, 1, 1,
5] should return 10, since we pick 5 and 5.

*Can you do this in O(N) time and constant space?

Q30. A unival tree (which stands for "universal value") is a tree where all nodes
under it have the same value. [Google]

Given the root to a binary tree, count the number of unival subtrees.

For example, the following tree has 5 unival subtrees:

0
 /\
1 0
/\
1 0
/\
1 1

Q31. Given the mapping a = 1, b = 2, ... z = 26, and an encoded message, count
the number of ways it can be decoded. [Facebook]

For example, the message '111' would give 3, since it could be decoded as 'aaa',
'ka', and 'ak'.

You can assume that the messages are decodable. For example, '001' is not
allowed.

Q32. An XOR linked list is a more memory efficient doubly linked list. Instead
of each node holding next and prev fields, it holds a field named both, which is
an XOR of the next node and the previous node. Implement an XOR linked list;
it has an add(element) which adds the element to the end, and a get(index)
which returns the node at index. [Google]

If using a language that has no pointers (such as Python), you can assume you
have access to get_pointer and dereference_pointer functions that converts
between nodes and memory addresses.

Q33. cons(a, b) constructs a pair, and car(pair) and cdr(pair) returns the first and
last element of that pair. For example, car(cons(3, 4)) returns 3, and cdr(cons(3,
4)) returns 4. [Jane Street]

Given this implementation of cons:

def cons(a, b):

def pair(f):
return f(a, b)
return pair
Implement car and cdr.

Q34. Given an array of integers, find the first missing positive integer in linear
time and constant space. In other words, find the lowest positive integer that
does not exist in the array. The array can contain duplicates and negative
numbers as well. [Stripe]
For example, the input [3, 4, -1, 1] should give 2. The input [1, 2, 0] should give
3.

You can modify the input array in-place.

Q35. Given the root to a binary tree, implement serialize(root), which serializes
the tree into a string, and deserialize(s), which deserializes the string back into
the tree. [Google]

For example, given the following Node class

class Node:
def __init__(self, val, left=None, right=None):
self.val = val
self.left = left
self.right = right
The following test should pass:

node = Node('root', Node('left', Node('left.left')), Node('right'))

assert deserialize(serialize(node)).left.left.val == 'left.left'

Q36. Given a list of numbers and a number k, return whether any two numbers
from the list add up to k. [Google]

For example, given [10, 15, 3, 7] and k of 17, return true since 10 + 7 is 17.

*Can you do this in one pass?