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Validate normalized palindromes with variants

Last updated: Mar 29, 2026

Quick Overview

This question evaluates string-processing skills including Unicode normalization, case-folding and diacritics handling, streaming input processing, error-tolerant palindrome logic, and analysis of time/space trade-offs.

  • Medium
  • xAI
  • Coding & Algorithms
  • Machine Learning Engineer

Validate normalized palindromes with variants

Company: xAI

Role: Machine Learning Engineer

Category: Coding & Algorithms

Difficulty: Medium

Interview Round: Technical Screen

Implement a function isNormalizedPalindrome(s) that returns true if s reads the same forward and backward after removing non‑alphanumeric characters and case‑folding. Follow‑ups: ( 1) Support full Unicode normalization (e.g., NFKD), diacritics stripping, and locale‑specific case rules. ( 2) Handle a streaming input where s may not fit in memory; optimize for one pass and sublinear extra space. ( 3) Allow at most one character deletion to still count as a palindrome; generalize to up to k deletions. ( 4) Return the index pair of the first mismatch if not a palindrome. Discuss time/space complexity, edge cases, and unit tests.

Quick Answer: This question evaluates string-processing skills including Unicode normalization, case-folding and diacritics handling, streaming input processing, error-tolerant palindrome logic, and analysis of time/space trade-offs.

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xAI
Jul 17, 2025, 12:00 AM
Machine Learning Engineer
Technical Screen
Coding & Algorithms
12
0

Implement a function isNormalizedPalindrome(s) that returns true if s reads the same forward and backward after removing non‑alphanumeric characters and case‑folding. Follow‑ups: (

  1. Support full Unicode normalization (e.g., NFKD), diacritics stripping, and locale‑specific case rules. (
  2. Handle a streaming input where s may not fit in memory; optimize for one pass and sublinear extra space. (
  3. Allow at most one character deletion to still count as a palindrome; generalize to up to k deletions. (
  4. Return the index pair of the first mismatch if not a palindrome. Discuss time/space complexity, edge cases, and unit tests.

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