Unit 4 Session 1 Standard (Click for link to problem statements)
Understand what the interviewer is asking for by using test cases and questions about the problem.
Q: What is the structure of the input?
"add"
or "remove"
.Q: What is the output?
True
if the actions are balanced, False
otherwise.Q: What does it mean for the actions to be balanced?
"add"
action must have a corresponding "remove"
action, and no "remove"
action should occur before a matching "add"
.Q: What should be returned if the list is empty?
True
, since an empty sequence is trivially balanced.Plan the solution with appropriate visualizations and pseudocode.
General Idea: Use a stack to track "add"
actions. For each "remove"
action, check if there is a corresponding "add"
on the stack. If the stack is empty when a "remove"
is encountered, or if any "add"
is left unmatched, the sequence is unbalanced.
1) Initialize an empty list called `stack` to simulate the stack behavior.
2) Iterate through each `action` in `actions`:
a) If `action` is `"add"`, push it onto the stack.
b) If `action` is `"remove"`, check if the stack is empty:
i) If empty, return `False`.
ii) If not empty, pop the top of the stack.
3) After the loop, return `True` if the stack is empty, otherwise return `False`.
**⚠️ Common Mistakes**
- Forgetting to return `False` if a `"remove"` action occurs with an empty stack.
- Not ensuring the stack is empty at the end to confirm all `"add"` actions were matched.
def validate_nft_actions(actions):
stack = []
for action in actions:
if action == "add":
stack.append(action)
elif action == "remove":
if not stack:
return False
stack.pop()
return len(stack) == 0