coding question

The most asked coding interview - #4

Return the Maximum absolute difference of values and indices

In this article we will be discussing one of the most asked coding interview question asked at Amazon.
The problem statement goes as follows:

Problem statement

Given an array A determine the maximum possible value of the following expression:
$f(i,j) =| A[i]-A[j] | +|i-j|$

Example

Input : A = {1, 3, -1} 
Output : 5
because the maximum value obtainable is:
=> f(1,2) = |3 - (-1)| + |1-2| = 5

Input : A={3, -2, 5, -4}
Output : 10
=> f(1, 4) = f(4, 1) = |3 - (-4)| + |1 - 4| = 10
Note that in this case we can also obtain 10 from
=> f(3, 4) = f(4, 3) = |5 - (-4)| + |3 - 4| = 10
Read More »The most asked coding interview - #4

The most asked programming interview questions - #3

Sort an array of size N made of numbers from 0 to K Problem statement In this article we will be discussing another (see the previous article) very popular programming interview question. This time we are asked to sort an array of size N whose elements are in the range [0,K). Problem statement Given an array $A=[a_1,a_2,…a_n],\: 1 \leq a_i \leq K$ modify A s.t. it is sorted. As usual you should ask your interviewer some clarifying questions. For example a sensible question to ask could be: What is the maximum value of $K$ and of $N$? Let's assume that $N \leq 10^7$ and $K\leq… Read More »The most asked programming interview questions - #3

The most asked coding interview - #2

Coding interview question: Determine if number is an Armstrong number

Problem statement

In this article we will be discussing another (see the previous article counting triples with a given sum) of the most common coding interview questions. The problem statement is really simple and goes as follows:

Given an positive integer N determine if it is an Armstrong number?
A number $x_1x_2…x_n$ (1 \leq x_i \leq 9 $ is a digit ) of length $n$ is an Armstrong number if the following is true:
$x_nx_{n-1}…x_2x_1 = pow(x_1,n) + pow(x_2,n) + … pow(x_n,n)$

In other words if raising all digits to power $n$ and sum all them up you obtain the original number, then $N$ is an Armstrong number.

Read More »The most asked coding interview - #2