Minimize moves to transform floor layouts

Q: Minimize moves to transform floor layouts

This question evaluates algorithm design and combinatorial optimization skills, focusing on reasoning about minimal moves, greedy heuristics, and proving optimality within the Coding & Algorithms domain for data-science technical roles.

Q: How do I approach Coding & Algorithms interview questions?

Coding & Algorithms questions require understanding of core concepts and practice. PracHub provides solutions with explanations to help you master coding & algorithms interviews.

Question

You are given an initial arrangement of apartments across Floors 1–4 and a target arrangement. In one move you may reposition a single apartment to a different floor (assume any move is allowed unless it violates the target’s per-floor apartment counts). Design an algorithm to transform the initial arrangement into the target using the fewest moves. Answer the following:

Describe your algorithm and prove or argue its optimality.
Analyze its time and space complexity.
Evaluate the greedy strategy "fix Floor 1 first, then Floors 2–4": is it always optimal? Provide a counterexample or a proof.
If multiple optimal solutions exist, how would you output one sequence of moves?

Minimize moves to transform floor layouts

Overview

Comments (0)