DailyCode 07/07/24, 12:53 AM

What is DSA? CP vs DSA?

DSA stands for Data Structures and Algorithms.

Data Structures means the way some data is stored. For example, we can store data as lists or
in a stack or as a tree. All of these are examples of data structures.

Algorithms is a set of steps you need to follow to solve some problem. Either the set of steps is
known (example, sorting, DFS etc) or you derive the set of steps using first principles and logical
thinking.

CP stands for Competitive Programming. It is a sport where competitors solve DSA problems.
They are either online or onsite. CodeChef, Codeforces are examples of online platforms where
CP contests are organised. You can participate in these sitting from home. ICPC, IOI, CodeJam,
local contests in tech fests etc are example of onsite contests.

CP vs DSA
How is CP and DSA different?
Technically, CP is a sport version of DSA.
However, we often use “DSA” to refer to the action of people learning DSA for interview
preparation or college exams whereas the term “CP” is used to refer to the action of people
participating in the coding competitions / sport.

So what will we be focussing on in this Cohort?

Our main focus will be “Interview preparation”. However this does not mean mugging up
Leetcode or solving 1000s of problems there. Rather, we will be learning the basics and trying
to master the art of problem solving. Also, we will be covering the popular data structures
and algorithms as well. However, as of now, we will not be focussing on advanced concepts
that are generally used in competitive programming and not super relevant for interviews.

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Choice of Language

All of us wants to stay in our comfort zone. But it’s very difficult to write code in every language
or more than 1 language in a live class.

We will try keeping most of our classes language agnostic. We will focus more on how to think
about the problem and solve it than writing the code. However, in some cases I will be writing
some code - we can decide on C++ / JS or do alternatively. However, you will also get the code
in all other languages in the reading materials.

My belief

You are better off if I am not using the language you are comfortable in
Why?
1. You are learning a new language which is always advantageous without additional (or
very minimal) effort on your end

2. You get to write the code yourself in your favourite language without my help. Your
implementation strength increases.

Arrays / Lists

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Collection of elements of some (any) type is called an array / list

As mentioned above, the type of elements can be fixed or different depending on the language.
For strongly types languages like C++, Java etc you need to specify the type of element the
array will be holding. However for some languages (generally weakly typed ones) allow you to
have heterogeneous arrays i.e a single array can hold different values (ex - Python, JS)

Python is not weakly typed. It does determine types and runtime and restrict some
operations like 10 + “20”. However, it does support heterogeneous arrays.

Operations
Creating an array / list
For strongly typed languages you need to provide a type

You can also specify the size of the array / list

If you don’t specify the size, it creates a dynamic array

C++ code

int arr[10]; // Fixed size Copy

int arr[n]; // Dynamic size. Determined at runtime.

int *arr = new int[n]; // Dynamic size. Determined at runtime.

vector<int> arr; // Completely dynamic. You can add / remove and its size adjus

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JS code

const arr = [] Copy

const arr = [1, 2, 3, 4]
const arr = new Array(5) // Not fixed size

Access array element using index

Iterating on the elements

You can choose to iterate through all the elements of the array. Generally you go left to right
or right to left, one element at a time.

Update the value at any index

Using an index, you can update the array value at that index. You can only do this for mutable
arrays / lists however.

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Strings
Array / List of characters is called a string. It is a collection of alphabets, words or other
characters

Example:

"Hello world" Copy

"Hello"
"Hello, I am 2020 graduate"

As it is a list of characters, you can perform similar operations on strings like arrays. Also the
language often provides you with more capabilities for string apart from the array operations like
splitting a string, searching for a substring within a string etc.

In some languages (ex: Python, Java), strings are immutable even if arrays are not
immutable.

Whenever you get a string problem, try determining the possible set of characters. For
example, if it is only lowercase or uppercase english alphabets, there are only 26 of
them. If all characters (Extended ASCII) are allowed there are 256 of them.

Problem 1: Good Pairs

Problem Link: https://leetcode.com/problems/number-of-good-pairs/description/

Given an array of integers nums, return the number of good pairs.

A pair (i, j) is called good if nums[i] == nums[j] and i < j .

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Example 1:

Input: nums = [1,2,3,1,1,3] Copy

Output: 4
Explanation: There are 4 good pairs (0,3), (0,4), (3,4), (2,5) 0-indexed.

Example 2:

Input: nums = [1,1,1,1] Copy

Output: 6
Explanation: Each pair in the array aregood.

Example 3:

Input: nums = [1,2,3] Copy

Output: 0

Solution
Initial approach
Let’s consider a different problem. Given a part of the array [0…i] where i can be anything,
can we find how many elements are there that are equal to arr[i] in this part of the array?
We can run another loop j from 0 to i-1 and check if arr[j] = arr[i] and increase count.
Now do the above logic for all i from 1 to n-1.

Lesser no of nested loops, the better the solution is

Optimal solution
Instead of running 2 loops, let’s see if we can do with one loop. We are running the loop of i.
What do we need? No. of elements on the left that are equal to arr[i] right? And what are the
elements on the left? It is same as the elements that we have visited in the loop till now, isn’t it
?
So if we can maintain a frequency for all the elements that we have visited till now, in an array
called freq , then freq[arr[i]] can be added to the ans.

Extension: Two Sum

Problem Link: https://leetcode.com/problems/two-sum/description/

Solution

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The problem reduces to the above problem, instead of finding frequency of arr[i] we just need
to find target - arr[i] .
Think: How do we handle negatives? We can have negative array values as well, how to
handle them?

Problem 2: Chef and Happy Strings

Problem Link: https://www.codechef.com/practice/course/strings/STRINGS/problems/HAPPYSTR

Chef has a string S with him. Chef is happy if the string contains a contiguous substring of
length strictly greater than 2 in which all its characters are vowels.

Determine whether Chef is happy or not.

Note that, in english alphabet, vowels are a , e , i , o , and u .

Example 1:

Input: aeiou Copy

Output: "Happy"
Explanation: "aei" is one contiguous substring with length strictly greater than 2 and on

Example 2:

Input: abxy Copy

Output: "Sad"
Explanation: There is no substring of length > 2 containing all vowels

Solution
Brute force
Generate all substrings with length > 2 and check if anyone of them is completely made of
only vowels.

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bool checkOnlyVowels(string s) { Copy

// Returns true if only vowels in s, false otherwise
}

for(int i=0; i<n-2; i++) {

for(int j=i+2, j++) {
if (checkOnlyVowels(s.substr(i, j)) return true;
}
}

return false;

Optimisation
Observation: If a substring of length 4 or more has only vowels, then any substring of that
substring of length 3 will also have only vowels. Thus, we can only focus on substrings of
length 3.

Problem 3

Q - You are given a string containing lower-case english alphabets. You need to perform the
following operation as many times as possible:

Take the first occurrence of each alphabet if it exists and remove it from the string. Eventually
the string becomes empty.

For example, let’s say the string is “ababcba”.

In the first move, we need to remove the first occurrence of each character ‘a’, ‘b’ and ‘c’. It
becomes
“ababcba” → “abba”

Again, we repeat unless the string becomes empty

“abba” → “ba”

“ba” → “”

Find the last non-empty value for the string.

Example 1:

Input: s = "ababcba" Copy

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Input: s = "ababcba" Copy

Output: "ba"
Explanation:

Solution
Brute force
We can do the moves iteratively, till we reach empty string. Also, before we do a move we
need to maintain the last string value as well. Once we reach empty string, the ans is the last
string value.

// Pseudo code Copy

function make_move(s) {
// remove first occurence of each character of s and return resultant string
}

last_val = ""
while (s is not empty) {
last_val = s
s = make_move(s)
}

Optimisation

Whenever there is some moves involved, generally there is some pattern that is
followed that can help us quickly determine the final state

Let’s answer these 2 questions:

1. What will be the final set of characters?

2. Which occurrence of these final set of characters are remaining?

Focus on this: We are removing one character of each type in every move. What will be left?
Obviously, the characters with maximum frequency. We can quickly determine that running 2
loops right? One for frequency and one for getting the characters with max frequency.

Now for 2, focus on this: Take the first occurrence. So essentially what will be pending is the
last occurrence of these characters right?

So final answer will be, the last occurrence of the maximum occurring characters.
Now we have everything, but can we write a cleaner code? Yes. What is the last occurrence of
a character? It is the first occurrence in reverse right? Now you want to generate a string
containing only last occurrences of some characters. How to go about it? Take the first
occurrence in reverse order. But the final string is reversed as we travelled in reverse order.
So the answer will be reverse of derived string.

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