Simulate In-Place Cellular State Updates
Company: Google
Role: Software Engineer
Category: Coding & Algorithms
Difficulty: hard
Interview Round: Technical Screen
Quick Answer: This question evaluates a candidate's ability to implement grid-based state transitions and manage in-place updates with strict space constraints, assessing skills in matrix manipulation, neighbor traversal, and correctness under simultaneous update rules.
Constraints
- 0 <= m, n <= 200
- grid[i][j] is either 0 or 1
- All rows have the same length
- Use O(1) extra space excluding the input grid itself
Examples
Input: ([[0, 1, 0], [0, 0, 1], [1, 1, 1], [0, 0, 0]],)
Expected Output: [[0, 0, 0], [1, 0, 1], [0, 1, 1], [0, 1, 0]]
Explanation: This is the standard example. All cells update simultaneously based on the original grid, producing the shown next state.
Input: ([[1, 1], [1, 1]],)
Expected Output: [[1, 1], [1, 1]]
Explanation: Each active cell has exactly three active neighbors, so all four cells remain active.