1/13/2021 Subsets With Duplicates (easy) - Grokking the Coding Interview: Patterns for Coding Questions

Subsets With Duplicates (easy)

We'll cover the following

• Problem Statement
• Try it yourself
• Solution
• Code
• Time complexity
• Space complexity

Problem Statement #
Given a set of numbers that might contain duplicates, find all of its distinct
subsets.

Example 1:

Input: [1, 3, 3]
Output: [], [1], [3], [1,3], [3,3], [1,3,3]

Example 2:

Input: [1, 5, 3, 3]
Output: [], [1], [5], [3], [1,5], [1,3], [5,3], [1,5,3], [3,3], [1,3,3],
[3,3,5], [1,5,3,3]

Try it yourself #
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1/13/2021 Subsets With Duplicates (easy) - Grokking the Coding Interview: Patterns for Coding Questions

Try solving this question here:

Java Python3 JS C++

const find_subsets = function(nums) {

subsets = [];
// TODO: Write your code here
return subsets;
};

console.log(`Here is the list of subsets: ${find_subsets([1, 3, 3])}`)

console.log(`Here is the list of subsets: ${find_subsets([1, 5, 3, 3])}`)

Solution #
This problem follows the Subsets
(https://www.educative.io/collection/page/5668639101419520/5671464854355
968/5670249378611200) pattern and we can follow a similar Breadth First
Search (BFS) approach. The only additional thing we need to do is handle
duplicates. Since the given set can have duplicate numbers, if we follow the
same approach discussed in Subsets
(https://www.educative.io/collection/page/5668639101419520/5671464854355
968/5670249378611200), we will end up with duplicate subsets, which is not
acceptable. To handle this, we will do two extra things:

1. Sort all numbers of the given set. This will ensure that all duplicate
numbers are next to each other.
2. Follow the same BFS approach but whenever we are about to process a
duplicate (i.e., when the current and the previous numbers are same),
instead of adding the current number (which is a duplicate) to all the
existing subsets, only add it to the subsets which were created in the
previous step.

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1/13/2021 Subsets With Duplicates (easy) - Grokking the Coding Interview: Patterns for Coding Questions

Let’s take Example-2 mentioned above to go through each step of our

algorithm:

Given set: [1, 5, 3, 3]

Sorted set: [1, 3, 3, 5]

1. Start with an empty set: [[]]

2. Add the first number (1) to all the existing subsets to create new subsets:
[[], [1]];
3. Add the second number (3) to all the existing subsets: [[], [1], [3], [1,3]].
4. The next number (3) is a duplicate. If we add it to all existing subsets we
will get:

[[], [1], [3], [1,3], [3], [1,3], [3,3], [1,3,3]]

We got two duplicate subsets: [3], [1,3]

Whereas we only needed the new subsets: [3,3], [1,3,3]

To handle this instead of adding (3) to all the existing subsets, we only add it
to the new subsets which were created in the previous (3rd) step:

[[], [1], [3], [1,3], [3,3], [1,3,3]]

5. Finally, add the forth number (5) to all the existing subsets: [[], [1], [3],
[1,3], [3,3], [1,3,3], [5], [1,5], [3,5], [1,3,5], [3,3,5], [1,3,3,5]]

Here is the visual representation of the above steps:

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1/13/2021 Subsets With Duplicates (easy) - Grokking the Coding Interview: Patterns for Coding Questions

[]

copy add 1

1 Insert --> [] [1]

copy add 3
Given set:
Note the difference for handling the duplicates
1 3 3 5 3 Insert --> [] [1] [3] [1,3]

copy
add 3

3 Insert --> [] [1] [3] [1,3] [3,3] [1,3,3]

5 Insert --> copy add 5

[] [1] [3] [1,3] [3,3] [1,3,3] [5] [1,5] [3,5] [1,3,5] [3,3,5] [1,3,3,5]

Code #
Here is what our algorithm will look like:

Java Python3 C++ JS

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1/13/2021 Subsets With Duplicates (easy) - Grokking the Coding Interview: Patterns for Coding Questions

function find_subsets(nums) {
// sort the numbers to handle duplicates
nums.sort();
const subsets = [];
subsets.push([]);
let startIndex = 0,
endIndex = 0;
for (i = 0; i < nums.length; i++) {
startIndex = 0;
// if current and the previous elements are same, create new subsets only from the subs
// added in the previous step
if (i > 0 && nums[i] === nums[i - 1]) {
startIndex = endIndex + 1;
}
endIndex = subsets.length - 1;
for (j = startIndex; j < endIndex + 1; j++) {
// create a new subset from the existing subset and add the current element to it
const set1 = subsets[j].slice(0);
set1.push(nums[i]);
subsets.push(set1);
}
}
return subsets;
}

console.log('Here is the list of subsets: ');

let result = find_subsets([1, 3, 3]);
result.forEach((subset) => {
console.log(subset);
});

console.log('Here is the list of subsets: ');

result = find_subsets([1, 5, 3, 3]);
result.forEach((subset) => {
console.log(subset);
});

Time complexity #

Since, in each step, the number of subsets doubles (if not duplicate) as we
add each element to all the existing subsets, therefore, we will have a total of
O(2N ) subsets, where ‘N’ is the total number of elements in the input set.

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1/13/2021 Subsets With Duplicates (easy) - Grokking the Coding Interview: Patterns for Coding Questions

And since we construct a new subset from an existing set, therefore, the time
complexity of the above algorithm will be O(N ∗ 2N ).

Space complexity #

All the additional space used by our algorithm is for the output list. Since, at
most, we will have a total of O(2N ) subsets, and each subset can take up to
O(N ) space, therefore, the space complexity of our algorithm will be
O(N ∗ 2N ).

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Subsets (easy) Permutations (medium)

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