Understand what the interviewer is asking for by using test cases and questions about the problem.
- Established a set (2-3) of test cases to verify their own solution later.
- Established a set (1-2) of edge cases to verify their solution handles complexities.
- Have fully understood the problem and have no clarifying questions.
- Have you verified any Time/Space Constraints for this problem?
Be sure that you clarify the input and output parameters of the problem:
Run through a set of example cases:
HAPPY CASE
Input: nums1 = [1,7,11], nums2 = [2,4,6], k = 3
Output: [[1,2],[1,4],[1,6]]
Input: nums1 = [1,1,2], nums2 = [1,2,3], k = 2
Output: [[1,1],[1,1]]
EDGE CASE
Input: nums1 = [1,2], nums2 = [3], k = 3
Output: [[1,3],[2,3]]Match what this problem looks like to known categories of problems, e.g. Linked List or Dynamic Programming, and strategies or patterns in those categories.
Plan the solution with appropriate visualizations and pseudocode.
General Idea: For finding the k smallest pairs, use a max-heap of size k. The idea is to take all combinations of elements from both lists, and keep adding them to a max-heap until it becomes full.
1) Initialize a heap to store the sum of pairs and their respective indexes.
2) Initially, we start making pairs by pairing only the first element of the second list with each element of the first list. We push the pairs onto a max-heap, sorted by the sum of each pair.
3) Use another loop to pop the smallest pair from the max-heap, noting the sum of the pair and the list indexes of each element, and add the pair to a result list.
4) To make new pairs, we move forward in the second list and pair the next element in it with each element of the first list, pushing each pair on the max-heap.
5) We keep pushing and popping pairs from the max-heap until we have collected the required k smallest pairs in the result list.⚠️ Common Mistakes
nums1[0] + nums2[k+1] can be a candidate? This cannot be, because nums1[0] + nums2[0....k] is always smaller than nums1[0] + nums2[k+1]. Each time after we pick the pair with min sum, we put the new pair with the second index +1. ie, pick (0,0), we put back (0,1). Therefore, the heap alway maintains at most min(k, len(nums1)) elements.Implement the code to solve the algorithm.
def kSmallestPairs(self, nums1: List[int], nums2: List[int], k: int) -> List[List[int]]:
heap = []
nums1.sort()
nums2.sort()
for n1 in nums1:
# if this condition occurs, that means whatever number will be larger than any element
# on the heap
if len(heap) >= k and n1 + nums2[0] > -heap[0][0]:
break
for n2 in nums2:
sm = n1 + n2
if len(heap) < k:
heapq.heappush(heap, (-sm, (n1, n2)))
elif sm < -heap[0][0]:
heapq.heappop(heap)
heapq.heappush(heap, (-sm, (n1, n2)))
else:
# greater than the current
# jth loop so no need to check it
break
ls = []
for ele in heap:
ls.append(ele[1])
return ls class Solution {
public List<List<Integer>> kSmallestPairs(int[] nums1, int[] nums2, int k) {
// we set a pq to store the minimum sum
PriorityQueue<List<Integer>> pq = new PriorityQueue<>((i1, i2) -> ((i1.get(0) + i1.get(1)) - (i2.get(0) + i2.get(1))));
// try first k elements in nums1 here
for(int i = 0; i < Math.min(nums1.length, k); i++){
pq.add(new ArrayList<Integer>(Arrays.asList(nums1[i], nums2[0], 0)));
}
List<List<Integer>> ret = new ArrayList<>();
while(!pq.isEmpty() && k > 0){
List<Integer> cur = pq.poll();
ret.add(new ArrayList<>(Arrays.asList(cur.get(0), cur.get(1))));
k--;
// because we only do the traverse in nums1
// so we sum the current smallest element in nums1
// with the current searched smallest element in nums2
if(cur.get(2) + 1 < nums2.length){
pq.offer(new ArrayList<Integer>(Arrays.asList(cur.get(0), nums2[cur.get(2) + 1], cur.get(2) + 1)));
}
}
return ret;
}
} Review the code by running specific example(s) and recording values (watchlist) of your code's variables along the way.
Evaluate the performance of your algorithm and state any strong/weak or future potential work.
