Find K most frequent elements

Q: Find K most frequent elements

This question evaluates a candidate's ability to implement efficient frequency counting and selection logic, demonstrating understanding of data structures, time and space complexity, and handling of large input sizes.

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Question

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Problem

You are given an array of integers nums and an integer k.

Return the k elements that occur most frequently in nums. You may return the answer in any order.

Input

nums : list of integers (can include negatives)
k : integer where 1 <= k <= number of distinct values in nums

Output

A list of k integers corresponding to the most frequent values.

Example

Input: nums = [1,1,1,2,2,3] , k = 2
Output: [1,2]

Constraints (typical interview bounds)

1 <= len(nums) <= 10^5
Values fit in 32-bit signed integer

Follow-ups (optional)

Can you do it faster than sorting by frequency?