Reorder a String by Alternating Its Left and Right Ends
Company: Capital One
Role: Software Engineer
Category: Coding & Algorithms
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Take-home Project
# Reorder a String by Alternating Its Left and Right Ends
Given a string `text`, construct a new string by taking characters in this order:
1. first character,
2. last character,
3. second character,
4. second-to-last character,
5. and so on until every character has been used exactly once.
Return the reordered string.
## Function Signature
```python
def alternate_ends(text: str) -> str:
...
```
## Constraints
- `0 <= len(text) <= 1_000_000`
- `text` contains printable ASCII characters, so every supported language agrees on character boundaries.
- Preserve each character exactly; do not trim or normalize the input.
## Examples
```text
Input: text = "abcde"
Output: "aebdc"
```
```text
Input: text = "abcd"
Output: "adbc"
```
```text
Input: text = ""
Output: ""
```
Quick Answer: Reorder a string by alternately taking the next character from its left and right ends until every character appears exactly once. This string-processing problem tests index boundaries, odd and even lengths, empty input, exact preservation of spaces and symbols, and linear construction at large scale.
