Decode a password string into letters
Company: Instacart
Role: Software Engineer
Category: Coding & Algorithms
Difficulty: hard
Interview Round: Technical Screen
A password is encoded as a string `s` using the following rules:
- Numbers `"1"` to `"9"` map to letters `a` to `i`.
- Numbers `"10#"` to `"26#"` (two digits followed by `#`) map to letters `j` to `z`.
For example:
- `"1" -> "a"`
- `"9" -> "i"`
- `"10#" -> "j"`
- `"26#" -> "z"`
**Task**: Given the encoded string `s`, return the decoded lowercase string.
**Input/Output**
- Input: a single string `s` consisting of digits and `#`.
- Output: the decoded string.
**Constraints**
- `1 <= len(s) <= 1000`
- The input is guaranteed to be a valid encoding.
**Examples**
- `s = "10#11#12"` → `"jkab"`
- `s = "1326#"` → `"acz"`
(Implementation note: you may need to manually parse the input string and handle `#` correctly.)
Quick Answer: This question evaluates string parsing and encoding/decoding skills, specifically mapping numeric tokens and handling delimiter characters within the Coding & Algorithms domain and focusing on practical implementation-level string manipulation.