Fill rooms with nearest-gate distance
Company: Microsoft
Role: Software Engineer
Category: Coding & Algorithms
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Onsite
You are given an m×n grid representing a building floor plan:
- `-1` = wall/blocked cell
- `0` = gate
- A large positive number (e.g., `INF = 2^31-1`) = empty room
Fill each empty room with the distance to its nearest gate (Manhattan distance: up/down/left/right). If a gate cannot be reached, leave the value as `INF`.
Return the modified grid (or modify it in-place).
Quick Answer: This Coding & Algorithms question evaluates algorithmic problem-solving with grid-based graph traversal and shortest-distance computation, assessing data-structure use and implementation-level efficiency for software engineers.