Grokking the coding interview equivalent leetcode problems

grokking_to_leetcode.md

GROKKING NOTES

I liked the way Grokking the coding interview organized problems into learnable patterns. However, the course is expensive and the majority of the time the problems are copy-pasted from leetcode. As the explanations on leetcode are usually just as good, the course really boils down to being a glorified curated list of leetcode problems.

So below I made a list of leetcode problems that are as close to grokking problems as possible.

Pattern: Sliding Window

• https://leetcode.com/problems/maximum-subarray/ # Close enough
• https://leetcode.com/problems/minimum-size-subarray-sum/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/longest-substring-with-at-most-k-distinct-characters/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/fruit-into-baskets/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/longest-substring-without-repeating-characters/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/longest-repeating-character-replacement/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/max-consecutive-ones-iii/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/permutation-in-string/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/find-all-anagrams-in-a-string/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/minimum-window-substring/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/substring-with-concatenation-of-all-words/

Pattern: Two Pointers

• https://leetcode.com/problems/two-sum/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/remove-duplicates-from-sorted-array/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/squares-of-a-sorted-array/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/3sum/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/3sum-closest/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/3sum-smaller/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/subarray-product-less-than-k/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/sort-colors/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/4sum/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/backspace-string-compare/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/shortest-unsorted-continuous-subarray/

Pattern: Fast & Slow pointers

• https://leetcode.com/problems/linked-list-cycle/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/linked-list-cycle-ii/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/happy-number/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/middle-of-the-linked-list/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/palindrome-linked-list/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/reorder-list/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/circular-array-loop/

Pattern: Merge Intervals

• https://leetcode.com/problems/merge-intervals/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/insert-interval/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/interval-list-intersections/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/meeting-rooms-ii/
• Could not find equivalent. Given a list of intervals with values, find the peak sum (i.e. if intervals are overlapping, sum their values)
• https://leetcode.com/problems/employee-free-time/

Pattern: Cyclic Sort

• Couldn't find equivalent for the first question. The second question below encompasses the first one though. See https://leetcode.com/problems/missing-number/discuss/859510/C%2B%2B-O(N)-O(1)-using-Cyclic-Sort for how grokking the coding interview approached these problems. It uses the fact that we can sort the array in O(n) without comparison operators
• https://leetcode.com/problems/missing-number/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/find-all-numbers-disappeared-in-an-array/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/find-all-duplicates-in-an-array/
• combine https://leetcode.com/problems/find-the-duplicate-number/ and https://leetcode.com/problems/missing-number/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/first-missing-positive/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/kth-missing-positive-number/

Pattern: In-place Reversal of a LinkedList

• https://leetcode.com/problems/reverse-linked-list/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/reverse-linked-list-ii/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/reverse-nodes-in-k-group/
• Next question is the same, but alternate each subgroup
• https://leetcode.com/problems/rotate-list/

Pattern: Tree Breadth First Search

• https://leetcode.com/problems/binary-tree-level-order-traversal/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/binary-tree-level-order-traversal-ii/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/binary-tree-zigzag-level-order-traversal/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/minimum-depth-of-binary-tree/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/inorder-successor-in-bst/ # Close, not exact
• https://leetcode.com/problems/populating-next-right-pointers-in-each-node/ # Close, grokk assumes non-perfect tree
• Next question is the same, but connect end nodes to the next level instead of null
• https://leetcode.com/problems/binary-tree-right-side-view/

Pattern: Tree Depth First Search

• https://leetcode.com/problems/path-sum/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/path-sum-ii/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/sum-root-to-leaf-numbers/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/check-if-a-string-is-a-valid-sequence-from-root-to-leaves-path-in-a-binary-tree/description/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/path-sum-iii/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/diameter-of-binary-tree/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/binary-tree-maximum-path-sum/

Pattern: Two Heaps

• https://leetcode.com/problems/find-median-from-data-stream/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/sliding-window-median/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/ipo/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/find-right-interval/

Pattern: Subsets

• https://leetcode.com/problems/subsets/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/subsets-ii/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/permutations/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/letter-case-permutation/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/generate-parentheses/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/generalized-abbreviation/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/different-ways-to-add-parentheses/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/unique-binary-search-trees-ii/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/unique-binary-search-trees/

Pattern: Modified Binary Search

• https://leetcode.com/problems/binary-search/ # Close enough. The grokking problem allows sorted input arrays as ascending or descending, which only introduces a simple check
• Did not find. Problem is find index of smallest element greater or equal to input value
• https://leetcode.com/problems/find-smallest-letter-greater-than-target/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/find-first-and-last-position-of-element-in-sorted-array/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/search-in-a-sorted-array-of-unknown-size/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/find-k-closest-elements/ (with K == 1)
• https://leetcode.com/problems/peak-index-in-a-mountain-array/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/find-in-mountain-array/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/search-in-rotated-sorted-array/
• Similar to previous, but find the number of rotations of the array.

Pattern: Bitwise XOR

• https://leetcode.com/problems/single-number/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/single-number-iii/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/complement-of-base-10-integer/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/flipping-an-image/

Pattern: Top 'K' elements

• Same as second question, but the first Grokking question wants the top K instead of the bottom K
• https://leetcode.com/problems/kth-largest-element-in-an-array
• https://leetcode.com/problems/k-closest-points-to-origin/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/minimum-cost-to-connect-sticks/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/top-k-frequent-elements/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/sort-characters-by-frequency/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/kth-largest-element-in-a-stream/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/find-k-closest-elements/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/least-number-of-unique-integers-after-k-removals/ closest leetcode or https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/maximum-distinct-elements-removing-k-elements/ for exact
• https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/sum-elements-k1th-k2th-smallest-elements/ no leetcode equivalent found
• https://leetcode.com/problems/reorganize-string/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/rearrange-string-k-distance-apart/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/task-scheduler/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/maximum-frequency-stack/

Pattern: K-way merge

• https://leetcode.com/problems/merge-k-sorted-lists/
• Same as previous, but return the Kth smallest number
• https://leetcode.com/problems/kth-smallest-element-in-a-sorted-matrix/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/smallest-range-covering-elements-from-k-lists/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/find-k-pairs-with-smallest-sums/ small difference, grokking has different sort order and wants the largest

Pattern: 0/1 Knapsack

• https://www.educative.io/courses/grokking-dynamic-programming-patterns-for-coding-interviews/RM1BDv71V60
• https://www.educative.io/courses/grokking-dynamic-programming-patterns-for-coding-interviews/3jEPRo5PDvx or https://leetcode.com/problems/partition-equal-subset-sum/
• https://www.educative.io/courses/grokking-dynamic-programming-patterns-for-coding-interviews/3j64vRY6JnR
• https://leetcode.com/problems/last-stone-weight-ii/ similar concept, but problem description is more abstract.
• https://leetcode.com/problems/combination-sum-ii/ similar, but return the number of combinations instead of the combinations
• https://leetcode.com/problems/target-sum/
• BONUS : Not in grokking, but I still found this very useful https://leetcode.com/problems/ones-and-zeroes/

Pattern: Topological Sort

• First problem is identical to the following three
• https://leetcode.com/problems/course-schedule/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/course-schedule-ii/
• Same as above, but return all instead of any
• https://leetcode.com/problems/alien-dictionary/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/sequence-reconstruction/description/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/minimum-height-trees/

Misc

• https://leetcode.com/problems/kth-largest-element-in-an-array/

Thanks for the list!

I think Pattern: Two Pointers first grok question "Pair with Target Sum" is more like Two Sum II than Two Sum because the input is sorted. In Two Sum, the input is not sorted, so a Two Pointer solution (sort first) is slower than the O(N) caching solution. In Two Sum II, the input is sorted, and we're can't use extra space, so the Two Pointer solution makes sense

Awesome list!

Under Pattern: Two Pointers https://leetcode.com/problems/subarray-product-less-than-k/ is a sliding window problem, a bit confusing when trying to study by topic

Sliding window is only valid if all the values are positive I think.

For 0/1 Knapsack: Minimum Subset Sum Difference: https://leetcode.com/problems/partition-array-into-two-arrays-to-minimize-sum-difference/
Maybe a significant difference is that the array lengths should be len(nums)/2 🤷

thanks for this.

Last problem for Pattern: Modified Binary Search similar to this - https://leetcode.com/problems/find-minimum-in-rotated-sorted-array/

Missing problem for Modified Binary Search is similar to https://leetcode.com/problems/closest-binary-search-tree-value/

For Pattern: Merge Intervals, I think this is the missing problem: Array Manipulation (Hacker Rank)

Nice catch! The corresponding problem in LeetCode should be https://leetcode.com/problems/corporate-flight-bookings/

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks a lot.

^^ here is the first problem is islands https://leetcode.com/problems/number-of-islands/

Merge Intervals is missing a problem: Conflicting Appointments (medium) -> https://leetcode.com/problems/meeting-rooms/

Not an exact match but close enough.

Ceiling of a Number (medium) -> https://leetcode.com/problems/search-insert-position/

@i-zanis topological orderings are not unique right?

Thanks for the list! Can anyone point me out to some resources where I can learn these patterns?

The topological sort 1st and 3rd question is exactly the same as a solution in Grokking. I converted the List to return int[] instead however when I test it on leetcode, the output is not in the same order. Does anyone know something?

The direction of the dependency graph in the leetcode problem is in reverse. For each edge, the first value is a course, the second value is it's pre-requisite. To determine the order in which to take all of the courses, you traverse from pre-requisite -> course.

So from your code change this:
int parent = edges[i][0], child = edges[i][1]
to this:
int parent = edges[i][1], child = edges[i][0]

Not all heroes..

For Tree BST (right after zig zag) should be https://leetcode.com/problems/average-of-levels-in-binary-tree/

Anyone found any other problems in the Islands?

Is there a Leetcode list of all these questions?

Great List, thank you!

Pattern: Islands (Matrix Traversal)
number of islands https://leetcode.com/problems/number-of-islands/
biggest island https://leetcode.com/problems/max-area-of-island/
flood fill https://leetcode.com/problems/flood-fill/
number of closed islands https://leetcode.com/problems/number-of-closed-islands/
problem challenge 1 https://leetcode.com/problems/island-perimeter/
problem challenge 2 https://leetcode.com/problems/number-of-distinct-islands/
problem challenge 3 https://leetcode.com/problems/detect-cycles-in-2d-grid/

Pattern: Islands (Matrix Traversal) number of islands https://leetcode.com/problems/number-of-islands/ biggest island https://leetcode.com/problems/max-area-of-island/ flood fill https://leetcode.com/problems/flood-fill/ number of closed islands https://leetcode.com/problems/number-of-closed-islands/ problem challenge 1 https://leetcode.com/problems/island-perimeter/ problem challenge 2 https://leetcode.com/problems/number-of-distinct-islands/ problem challenge 3 https://leetcode.com/problems/detect-cycles-in-2d-grid/

ty

https://libgen.is/search.php?req=grokking+the+coding+interview&lg_topic=libgen&open=0&view=simple&res=25&phrase=1&column=def

(grokking the coding interview course ---> zip file link ---> use "7-zip" to extract after downloading)

If link isn't working , then go to libgen (generally libgen.is) and search for the course there....the extracting method remains the same.

https://libgen.is/search.php?req=grokking+the+coding+interview&lg_topic=libgen&open=0&view=simple&res=25&phrase=1&column=def

(grokking the coding interview course ---> zip file link ---> use "7-zip" to extract after downloading)

If link isn't working , then go to libgen (generally libgen.is) and search for the course there....the extracting method remains the same.

kinda feel bad for the authors, but thanks

If you feel bad for the author pay $79 for lifetime access. There is a 20% off coupon so its $63.20. https://designgurus.org/course/grokking-the-coding-interview

https://libgen.is/search.php?req=grokking+the+coding+interview&lg_topic=libgen&open=0&view=simple&res=25&phrase=1&column=def

(grokking the coding interview course ---> zip file link ---> use "7-zip" to extract after downloading)

If link isn't working , then go to libgen (generally libgen.is) and search for the course there....the extracting method remains the same.

This is awesome, thanks!
Have you seen the system design interview somewhere?

https://libgen.is/search.php?req=grokking+the+coding+interview&lg_topic=libgen&open=0&view=simple&res=25&phrase=1&column=def
(grokking the coding interview course ---> zip file link ---> use "7-zip" to extract after downloading)
If link isn't working , then go to libgen (generally libgen.is) and search for the course there....the extracting method remains the same.

This is awesome, thanks! Have you seen the system design interview somewhere?

No but if you do, kindly share.

https://libgen.is/search.php?req=grokking+the+coding+interview&lg_topic=libgen&open=0&view=simple&res=25&phrase=1&column=def
(grokking the coding interview course ---> zip file link ---> use "7-zip" to extract after downloading)
If link isn't working , then go to libgen (generally libgen.is) and search for the course there....the extracting method remains the same.

This is awesome, thanks! Have you seen the system design interview somewhere?

No but if you do, kindly share.

I found this: https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design-primer
Some people mentioned it's inspired by grokking, but I wouldn't know.

Awesome list!

For Cyclic Sort, you have the last item in the list linked to https://leetcode.com/problems/kth-missing-positive-number/ which is not correct.

The leetcode question has an array of sorted, positive numbers and you are looking for the kth missing positive. This is an LC easy and you don't even need cyclic sort since the numbers are already sorted.

The grokking question is an unsorted array containing both positive and negative numbers, possibly duplicate values, and you are finding all values from 1-k. This is a LC hard (per grokking)

There is a new grokking course on Educative. I am creating a new mapping. Pull requests are appreciated. Link: https://github.com/navidre/new_grokking_to_leetcode

letss goo

If you feel bad for the author pay $79 for lifetime access. There is a 20% off coupon so its $63.20. https://designgurus.org/course/grokking-the-coding-interview

I bought the course a couple months ago for full price and all I can say is that I regret buying it and feel it was a waste of money. For how much it costs for what is basically a curated LeetCode problem set with solutions, a significant amount of the solutions don't offer much in depth or detailed explanation and some of the solutions fail to pass their closest LC equivalent problems. I've found better solution explanations and help from looking on the Discuss page of those LC problems and watching NeetCode's video solutions.

Thanks for sharing

Thanks

Hi,

I do see a couple of new patterns in the Grokking the Coding Interview: https://www.designgurus.io/course/grokking-the-coding-interview

Backtracking: https://www.designgurus.io/course-play/grokking-the-coding-interview/doc/63d3bcd7f81b8e2fe5ded81c
Multi-threaded: https://www.designgurus.io/course-play/grokking-the-coding-interview/doc/63a5ce68923d029fb1c4b4ec

Does anyone have the list of equivalent LC questions, especially under Multi-threaded?

Backtracking

• Combination Sum -> https://leetcode.com/problems/combination-sum/
• Word Search -> https://leetcode.com/problems/word-search/
• Sudoku Solver -> https://leetcode.com/problems/sudoku-solver/
• Factor Combinations -> LC Premium, matches title https://leetcode.com/problems/factor-combinations/
• Split A String Into The Max Number of Unique Substrings -> https://leetcode.com/problems/split-a-string-into-the-max-number-of-unique-substrings/

Multithreading

https://leetcode.com/problems/same-tree/
https://leetcode.com/problems/invert-binary-tree/
https://leetcode.com/problems/binary-search-tree-iterator/

Test your knowledge section:

• Valid Perfect Square -> https://leetcode.com/problems/valid-perfect-square/
• Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock -> https://leetcode.com/problems/best-time-to-buy-and-sell-stock/
• Daily Temperatures -> https://leetcode.com/problems/daily-temperatures/
• Group Anagrams -> https://leetcode.com/problems/group-anagrams/
• Decode String -> https://leetcode.com/problems/decode-string/
• Valid Sudoku -> https://leetcode.com/problems/valid-sudoku/
• Longest Valid Parentheses -> https://leetcode.com/problems/longest-valid-parentheses/

Monotonic Stack

• Next Greater Element -> https://leetcode.com/problems/next-greater-element-i/
• Daily Temperatures -> https://leetcode.com/problems/daily-temperatures/
• Remove Nodes From Linked List -> https://leetcode.com/problems/remove-nodes-from-linked-list/
• Remove All Adjacent Duplicates in String -> https://leetcode.com/problems/remove-all-adjacent-duplicates-in-string/
• Remove All Adjacent Duplicates in String II -> https://leetcode.com/problems/remove-all-adjacent-duplicates-in-string-ii/
• Remove K Digits -> https://leetcode.com/problems/remove-k-digits/

Thanks to everyone.

You're the goat!

Hi, Is it legal to share this course notes on GitHub?

@i-zanis topological orderings are not unique right?

yes .. they may vary

can someone share the updated list ?

I built this GPT for personalized mock interviews. Any programming language. With detailed feedback. Needs ChatGPT Plus for now: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-ngDadz7qM-mock-interviewer

Union Find:
https://leetcode.com/problems/redundant-connection/description/
https://leetcode.com/problems/number-of-provinces/description/
https://leetcode.com/problems/is-graph-bipartite/description/
https://leetcode.com/problems/path-with-minimum-effort/description/

Ordered Set:
https://leetcode.com/problems/merge-similar-items/description/
https://leetcode.com/problems/132-pattern/
https://leetcode.com/problems/my-calendar-i/
https://leetcode.com/problems/longest-continuous-subarray-with-absolute-diff-less-than-or-equal-to-limit/description/

Trie:

• https://leetcode.com/problems/implement-trie-prefix-tree/description/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/index-pairs-of-a-string/description/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/design-add-and-search-words-data-structure/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/extra-characters-in-a-string/description/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/search-suggestions-system/

Greedy Algorithms:

• https://leetcode.com/problems/valid-palindrome-ii/description/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/maximum-length-of-pair-chain/description/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/minimum-add-to-make-parentheses-valid/description/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/remove-duplicate-letters/description/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/largest-palindromic-number/description/
• https://leetcode.com/problems/removing-minimum-and-maximum-from-array/description/

Hashing:

• First Unique Character in a String : https://leetcode.com/problems/first-unique-character-in-a-string/description/
• Largest Unique Number : https://leetcode.com/problems/largest-unique-number/description/
• Maximum Number of Balloons: https://leetcode.com/problems/maximum-number-of-balloons/description/
• Longest Palindrome : https://leetcode.com/problems/longest-palindrome/description/
• Ransom Note : https://leetcode.com/problems/ransom-note/description/

https://leetstream.github.io/
It offers daily LeetCode problems categorized under 26 patterns, shuffled to ensure spaced repetition across different coding patterns.