2022-03-07
21. Merge Two Sorted Lists

Topic: Linked List, Recursion
Difficulty: Easy

Problem:
You are given the heads of two sorted linked lists list1 and list2.

Merge the two lists in a one sorted list. The list should be made by splicing together the nodes of the first two lists.

Return the head of the merged linked list.

Example 1:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2020/10/03/merge_ex1.jpg

Input: list1 = [1,2,4], list2 = [1,3,4]
Output: [1,1,2,3,4,4]

Example 2:

Input: list1 = [], list2 = []
Output: []

Example 3:

Input: list1 = [], list2 = [0]
Output: [0]

Constraints:

• The number of nodes in both lists is in the range [0, 50].
• -100 <= Node.val <= 100
• Both list1 and list2 are sorted in non-decreasing order.

2022-03-08
141. Linked List Cycle

Topic: Hash Table, Linked List, Two Pointers
Difficulty: Easy

Problem:
Given head, the head of a linked list, determine if the linked list has a cycle in it.

There is a cycle in a linked list if there is some node in the list that can be reached again by continuously following the next pointer. Internally, pos is used to denote the index of the node that tail's next pointer is connected to. Note that pos is not passed as a parameter.

Return true if there is a cycle in the linked list. Otherwise, return false.

Example 1:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2018/12/07/circularlinkedlist.png

Input: head = [3,2,0,-4], pos = 1
Output: true
Explanation: There is a cycle in the linked list, where the tail connects to the 1st node (0-indexed).

Example 2:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2018/12/07/circularlinkedlist_test2.png

Input: head = [1,2], pos = 0
Output: true
Explanation: There is a cycle in the linked list, where the tail connects to the 0th node.

Example 3:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2018/12/07/circularlinkedlist_test3.png

Input: head = [1], pos = -1
Output: false
Explanation: There is no cycle in the linked list.

Constraints:

• The number of the nodes in the list is in the range [0, 10^4].
• -10^5 <= Node.val <= 10^5
• pos is -1 or a valid index in the linked-list.

Follow up: Can you solve it using O(1) (i.e. constant) memory?

2022-03-09
82. Remove Duplicates from Sorted List II

Topic: Linked List, Two Pointers
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
Given the head of a sorted linked list, delete all nodes that have duplicate numbers, leaving only distinct numbers from the original list. Return the linked list sorted as well.

Example 1:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2021/01/04/linkedlist1.jpg

Input: head = [1,2,3,3,4,4,5]
Output: [1,2,5]

Example 2:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2021/01/04/linkedlist2.jpg

Input: head = [1,1,1,2,3]
Output: [2,3]

Constraints:

• The number of nodes in the list is in the range [0, 300].
• -100 <= Node.val <= 100
• The list is guaranteed to be sorted in ascending order.

2022-03-10
2. Add Two Numbers

Topic: Linked List, Math, Recursion
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
You are given two non-empty linked lists representing two non-negative integers. The digits are stored in reverse order, and each of their nodes contains a single digit. Add the two numbers and return the sum as a linked list.

You may assume the two numbers do not contain any leading zero, except the number 0 itself.

Example 1:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2020/10/02/addtwonumber1.jpg

Input: l1 = [2,4,3], l2 = [5,6,4]
Output: [7,0,8]
Explanation: 342 + 465 = 807.

Example 2:

Input: l1 = [0], l2 = [0]
Output: [0]

Example 3:

Input: l1 = [9,9,9,9,9,9,9], l2 = [9,9,9,9]
Output: [8,9,9,9,0,0,0,1]

Constraints:

• The number of nodes in each linked list is in the range [1, 100].
• 0 <= Node.val <= 9
• It is guaranteed that the list represents a number that does not have leading zeros.

2022-03-11
61. Rotate List

Topic: Linked List, Two Pointers
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
Given the head of a linked list, rotate the list to the right by k places.

Example 1:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2020/11/13/rotate1.jpg

Input: head = [1,2,3,4,5], k = 2
Output: [4,5,1,2,3]

Example 2:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2020/11/13/roate2.jpg

Input: head = [0,1,2], k = 4
Output: [2,0,1]

Constraints:

• The number of nodes in the list is in the range [0, 500].
• -100 <= Node.val <= 100
• 0 <= k <= 2 * 10^9

2022-03-12
138. Copy List with Random Pointer

Topic: Hash Table, Linked List
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
A linked list of length n is given such that each node contains an additional random pointer, which could point to any node in the list, or null.

Construct a deep copy of the list. The deep copy should consist of exactly n brand new nodes, where each new node has its value set to the value of its corresponding original node. Both the next and random pointer of the new nodes should point to new nodes in the copied list such that the pointers in the original list and copied list represent the same list state. None of the pointers in the new list should point to nodes in the original list.

For example, if there are two nodes X and Y in the original list, where X.random --> Y, then for the corresponding two nodes x and y in the copied list, x.random --> y.

Return the head of the copied linked list.

The linked list is represented in the input/output as a list of n nodes. Each node is represented as a pair of [val, random_index] where:

• val: an integer representing Node.val
• random_index: the index of the node (range from 0 to n-1) that the random pointer points to, or null if it does not point to any node.

Your code will only be given the head of the original linked list.

Example 1:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2019/12/18/e1.png

Input: head = [[7,null],[13,0],[11,4],[10,2],[1,0]]
Output: [[7,null],[13,0],[11,4],[10,2],[1,0]]

Example 2:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2019/12/18/e2.png

Input: head = [[1,1],[2,1]]
Output: [[1,1],[2,1]]

Example 3:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2019/12/18/e3.png

Input: head = [[3,null],[3,0],[3,null]]
Output: [[3,null],[3,0],[3,null]]

Constraints:

• 0 <= n <= 1000
• -10^4 <= Node.val <= 10^4
• Node.random is null or is pointing to some node in the linked list.

2022-03-13
20. Valid Parentheses

Topic: String, Stack
Difficulty: Easy

Problem:
Given a string s containing just the characters '(', ')', '{', '}', '[' and ']', determine if the input string is valid.

An input string is valid if:

1. Open brackets must be closed by the same type of brackets.
2. Open brackets must be closed in the correct order.

Example 1:

Input: s = "()"
Output: true

Example 2:

Input: s = "()[]{}"
Output: true

Example 3:

Input: s = "(]"
Output: false

Constraints:

• 1 <= s.length <= 10^4
• s consists of parentheses only '()[]{}'.

2022-03-14
71. Simplify Path

Topic: String, Stack
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
Given a string path, which is an absolute path (starting with a slash '/') to a file or directory in a Unix-style file system, convert it to the simplified canonical path.

In a Unix-style file system, a period '.' refers to the current directory, a double period '..' refers to the directory up a level, and any multiple consecutive slashes (i.e. '//') are treated as a single slash '/'. For this problem, any other format of periods such as '...' are treated as file/directory names.

The canonical path should have the following format:

• The path starts with a single slash '/'.
• Any two directories are separated by a single slash '/'.
• The path does not end with a trailing '/'.
• The path only contains the directories on the path from the root directory to the target file or directory (i.e., no period '.' or double period '..')

Return the simplified canonical path.

Example 1:

Input: path = "/home/"
Output: "/home"
Explanation: Note that there is no trailing slash after the last directory name.

Example 2:

Input: path = "/../"
Output: "/"
Explanation: Going one level up from the root directory is a no-op, as the root level is the highest level you can go.

Example 3:

Input: path = "/home//foo/"
Output: "/home/foo"
Explanation: In the canonical path, multiple consecutive slashes are replaced by a single one.

Constraints:

• 1 <= path.length <= 3000
• path consists of English letters, digits, period '.', slash '/' or '_'.
• path is a valid absolute Unix path.

2022-03-15
1249. Minimum Remove to Make Valid Parentheses

Topic: String, Stack
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
Given a string s of '(' , ')' and lowercase English characters.

Your task is to remove the minimum number of parentheses ( '(' or ')', in any positions ) so that the resulting parentheses string is valid and return any valid string.

Formally, a parentheses string is valid if and only if:

• It is the empty string, contains only lowercase characters, or
• It can be written as AB (A concatenated with B), where A and B are valid strings, or
• It can be written as (A), where A is a valid string.

Example 1:

Input: s = "lee(t(c)o)de)"
Output: "lee(t(c)o)de"
Explanation: "lee(t(co)de)" , "lee(t(c)ode)" would also be accepted.

Example 2:

Input: s = "a)b(c)d"
Output: "ab(c)d"

Example 3:

Input: s = "))(("
Output: ""
Explanation: An empty string is also valid.

Constraints:

• 1 <= s.length <= 10^5
• s[i] is either'(' , ')', or lowercase English letter.

2022-03-16
946. Validate Stack Sequences

Topic: Array, Stack, Simulation
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
Given two integer arrays pushed and popped each with distinct values, return true if this could have been the result of a sequence of push and pop operations on an initially empty stack, or false otherwise.

Example 1:

Input: pushed = [1,2,3,4,5], popped = [4,5,3,2,1]
Output: true
Explanation: We might do the following sequence:
push(1), push(2), push(3), push(4),
pop() -> 4,
push(5),
pop() -> 5, pop() -> 3, pop() -> 2, pop() -> 1

Example 2:

Input: pushed = [1,2,3,4,5], popped = [4,3,5,1,2]
Output: false
Explanation: 1 cannot be popped before 2.

Constraints:

• 1 <= pushed.length <= 1000
• 0 <= pushed[i] <= 1000
• All the elements of pushed are unique.
• popped.length == pushed.length
• popped is a permutation of pushed.

2022-03-17
856. Score of Parentheses

Topic: String, Stack
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
Given a balanced parentheses string s, return the score of the string.

The score of a balanced parentheses string is based on the following rule:

• "()" has score 1.
• AB has score A + B, where A and B are balanced parentheses strings.
• (A) has score 2 * A, where A is a balanced parentheses string.

Example 1:

Input: s = "()"
Output: 1

Example 2:

Input: s = "(())"
Output: 2

Example 3:

Input: s = "()()"
Output: 2

Constraints:

• 2 <= s.length <= 50
• s consists of only '(' and ')'.
• s is a balanced parentheses string.

2022-03-18
316. Remove Duplicate Letters

Topic: String, Stack, Greedy, Monotonic Stack
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
Given a string s, remove duplicate letters so that every letter appears once and only once. You must make sure your result is the smallest in lexicographical order among all possible results.

Example 1:

Input: s = "bcabc"
Output: "abc"

Example 2:

Input: s = "cbacdcbc"
Output: "acdb"

Constraints:

• 1 <= s.length <= 10^4
• s consists of lowercase English letters.

Note: This question is the same as 1081: <https://leetcode.com/problems/smallest-subsequence-of-distinct-characters/>

2022-03-19
895. Maximum Frequency Stack

Topic: Hash Table, Stack, Design, Ordered Set
Difficulty: Hard

Problem:
Design a stack-like data structure to push elements to the stack and pop the most frequent element from the stack.

Implement the FreqStack class:

• FreqStack() constructs an empty frequency stack.
• void push(int val) pushes an integer val onto the top of the stack.
• int pop() removes and returns the most frequent element in the stack.
• If there is a tie for the most frequent element, the element closest to the stack's top is removed and returned.

Example 1:

Input
["FreqStack", "push", "push", "push", "push", "push", "push", "pop", "pop", "pop", "pop"]
[[], [5], [7], [5], [7], [4], [5], [], [], [], []]
Output
[null, null, null, null, null, null, null, 5, 7, 5, 4]

Explanation
FreqStack freqStack = new FreqStack();
freqStack.push(5); // The stack is [5]
freqStack.push(7); // The stack is [5,7]
freqStack.push(5); // The stack is [5,7,5]
freqStack.push(7); // The stack is [5,7,5,7]
freqStack.push(4); // The stack is [5,7,5,7,4]
freqStack.push(5); // The stack is [5,7,5,7,4,5]
freqStack.pop();   // return 5, as 5 is the most frequent. The stack becomes [5,7,5,7,4].
freqStack.pop();   // return 7, as 5 and 7 is the most frequent, but 7 is closest to the top. The stack becomes [5,7,5,4].
freqStack.pop();   // return 5, as 5 is the most frequent. The stack becomes [5,7,4].
freqStack.pop();   // return 4, as 4, 5 and 7 is the most frequent, but 4 is closest to the top. The stack becomes [5,7].

Constraints:

• 0 <= val <= 10^9
• At most 2 * 10^4 calls will be made to push and pop.
• It is guaranteed that there will be at least one element in the stack before calling pop.

2022-03-20
1007. Minimum Domino Rotations For Equal Row

Topic: Array, Greedy
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
In a row of dominoes, tops[i] and bottoms[i] represent the top and bottom halves of the i^th domino. (A domino is a tile with two numbers from 1 to 6 - one on each half of the tile.)

We may rotate the i^th domino, so that tops[i] and bottoms[i] swap values.

Return the minimum number of rotations so that all the values in tops are the same, or all the values in bottoms are the same.

If it cannot be done, return -1.

Example 1:

Image: https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2021/05/14/domino.png

Input: tops = [2,1,2,4,2,2], bottoms = [5,2,6,2,3,2]
Output: 2
Explanation: 
The first figure represents the dominoes as given by tops and bottoms: before we do any rotations.
If we rotate the second and fourth dominoes, we can make every value in the top row equal to 2, as indicated by the second figure.

Example 2:

Input: tops = [3,5,1,2,3], bottoms = [3,6,3,3,4]
Output: -1
Explanation: 
In this case, it is not possible to rotate the dominoes to make one row of values equal.

Constraints:

• 2 <= tops.length <= 2 * 10^4
• bottoms.length == tops.length
• 1 <= tops[i], bottoms[i] <= 6

2022-03-21
763. Partition Labels

Topic: Hash Table, Two Pointers, String, Greedy
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
You are given a string s. We want to partition the string into as many parts as possible so that each letter appears in at most one part.

Note that the partition is done so that after concatenating all the parts in order, the resultant string should be s.

Return a list of integers representing the size of these parts.

Example 1:

Input: s = "ababcbacadefegdehijhklij"
Output: [9,7,8]
Explanation:
The partition is "ababcbaca", "defegde", "hijhklij".
This is a partition so that each letter appears in at most one part.
A partition like "ababcbacadefegde", "hijhklij" is incorrect, because it splits s into less parts.

Example 2:

Input: s = "eccbbbbdec"
Output: [10]

Constraints:

• 1 <= s.length <= 500
• s consists of lowercase English letters.

2022-03-22
1663. Smallest String With A Given Numeric Value

Topic: String, Greedy
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
The numeric value of a lowercase character is defined as its position (1-indexed) in the alphabet, so the numeric value of a is 1, the numeric value of b is 2, the numeric value of c is 3, and so on.

The numeric value of a string consisting of lowercase characters is defined as the sum of its characters' numeric values. For example, the numeric value of the string "abe" is equal to 1 + 2 + 5 = 8.

You are given two integers n and k. Return the lexicographically smallest string with length equal to n and numeric value equal to k.

Note that a string x is lexicographically smaller than string y if x comes before y in dictionary order, that is, either x is a prefix of y, or if i is the first position such that x[i] != y[i], then x[i] comes before y[i] in alphabetic order.

Example 1:

Input: n = 3, k = 27
Output: "aay"
Explanation: The numeric value of the string is 1 + 1 + 25 = 27, and it is the smallest string with such a value and length equal to 3.

Example 2:

Input: n = 5, k = 73
Output: "aaszz"

Constraints:

• 1 <= n <= 10^5
• n <= k <= 26 * n

2022-03-23
991. Broken Calculator

Topic: Math, Greedy
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
There is a broken calculator that has the integer startValue on its display initially. In one operation, you can:

• multiply the number on display by 2, or
• subtract 1 from the number on display.

Given two integers startValue and target, return the minimum number of operations needed to display target on the calculator.

Example 1:

Input: startValue = 2, target = 3
Output: 2
Explanation: Use double operation and then decrement operation {2 -> 4 -> 3}.

Example 2:

Input: startValue = 5, target = 8
Output: 2
Explanation: Use decrement and then double {5 -> 4 -> 8}.

Example 3:

Input: startValue = 3, target = 10
Output: 3
Explanation: Use double, decrement and double {3 -> 6 -> 5 -> 10}.

Constraints:

• 1 <= x, y <= 10^9

2022-03-24
881. Boats to Save People

Topic: Array, Two Pointers, Greedy, Sorting
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
You are given an array people where people[i] is the weight of the i^th person, and an infinite number of boats where each boat can carry a maximum weight of limit. Each boat carries at most two people at the same time, provided the sum of the weight of those people is at most limit.

Return the minimum number of boats to carry every given person.

Example 1:

Input: people = [1,2], limit = 3
Output: 1
Explanation: 1 boat (1, 2)

Example 2:

Input: people = [3,2,2,1], limit = 3
Output: 3
Explanation: 3 boats (1, 2), (2) and (3)

Example 3:

Input: people = [3,5,3,4], limit = 5
Output: 4
Explanation: 4 boats (3), (3), (4), (5)

Constraints:

• 1 <= people.length <= 5 * 10^4
• 1 <= people[i] <= limit <= 3 * 10^4

2022-03-25
1029. Two City Scheduling

Topic: Array, Greedy, Sorting
Difficulty: Medium

Problem:
A company is planning to interview 2n people. Given the array costs where costs[i] = [aCost_i, bCost_i], the cost of flying the i^th person to city a is aCost_i, and the cost of flying the i^th person to city b is bCost_i.

Return the minimum cost to fly every person to a city such that exactly n people arrive in each city.

Example 1:

Input: costs = [[10,20],[30,200],[400,50],[30,20]]
Output: 110
Explanation: 
The first person goes to city A for a cost of 10.
The second person goes to city A for a cost of 30.
The third person goes to city B for a cost of 50.
The fourth person goes to city B for a cost of 20.

The total minimum cost is 10 + 30 + 50 + 20 = 110 to have half the people interviewing in each city.

Example 2:

Input: costs = [[259,770],[448,54],[926,667],[184,139],[840,118],[577,469]]
Output: 1859

Example 3:

Input: costs = [[515,563],[451,713],[537,709],[343,819],[855,779],[457,60],[650,359],[631,42]]
Output: 3086

Constraints:

• 2 * n == costs.length
• 2 <= costs.length <= 100
• costs.length is even.
• 1 <= aCost_i, bCost_i <= 1000

2022-03-26
704. Binary Search

Topic: Array, Binary Search
Difficulty: Easy

Problem:
Given an array of integers nums which is sorted in ascending order, and an integer target, write a function to search target in nums. If target exists, then return its index. Otherwise, return -1.

You must write an algorithm with O(log n) runtime complexity.

Example 1:

Input: nums = [-1,0,3,5,9,12], target = 9
Output: 4
Explanation: 9 exists in nums and its index is 4

Example 2:

Input: nums = [-1,0,3,5,9,12], target = 2
Output: -1
Explanation: 2 does not exist in nums so return -1

Constraints:

• 1 <= nums.length <= 10^4
• -10^4 < nums[i], target < 10^4
• All the integers in nums are unique.
• nums is sorted in ascending order.