Solved Sudoku validation challenge using sets and dictionaries.

🚀 Day 26 of #100DaysOfCode — LeetCode + HackerRank Edition! Today’s challenge was all about string precision and pattern matching: 🔗 Implement strStr() (LeetCode) 📌 Challenge: Given two strings haystack and needle, return the index of the first occurrence of needle in haystack, or -1 if it doesn’t exist. 🔍 Approach: → Skipped the built-in .find() to implement it manually → Iterated through haystack only up to len(haystack) - len(needle) → Compared slices haystack[i:i+len(needle)] with needle → Returned the index on match, -1 otherwise 💡 What made it click: → Realized that checking every possible starting index is enough — no need to build substrings manually → Adjusting the loop range to avoid out-of-bound errors was the key → Removing redundant checks like if needle not in haystack made the code cleaner and faster 📚 What I learned: ✅ Substring search is a great intro to sliding window logic ✅ Clean loop bounds = fewer bugs ✅ Sometimes the simplest approach is the most elegant ✅ Writing your own version of built-ins deepens your understanding of how they work under the hood Have you implemented your own strStr() before? Did you go brute-force or try KMP? Let’s compare strategies 💬🔍 #Day26 #LeetCode #StringMatching #CodingChallenge #Python #ProblemSolving #CleanCode #CodeEveryDay #LearnToCode #CodeNewbie #SoftwareEngineering #TechJourney #geeksforgeeks #100DaysOfCode

🚀 Day 46 of #100DaysOfCode — Leetcode + HackerRank Edition! Today’s challenge was a twist on yesterday’s recursion puzzle — this time with duplicates in the mix 🔁🧠 🧩 permuteUnique(self, nums: List[int]) -> List[List[int]] — Generate all unique permutations of a list that may contain duplicate integers. 📌 Challenge: → Given a list nums, return all distinct orderings → Each number must appear exactly once per permutation → Example: nums = [1, 1, 2] ✅ Output: [[1,1,2], [1,2,1], [2,1,1]] 🔍 Approach: → Sort the input to group duplicates → Use recursion + backtracking to build paths → Track visited indices with a used[] array → Skip duplicates using: if i > 0 and nums[i] == nums[i - 1] and not used[i - 1]: continue  → Backtrack by popping the last element and resetting used[i] 💡 What made it click: → Visualized the decision tree for [1, 1, 2] — saw how pruning avoids duplicate branches → Practiced dry runs to trace how used[] and sorting work together → Realized how skipping nums[i] when nums[i] == nums[i-1] and used[i-1] == False prevents redundant paths → Appreciated how recursion + pruning = clean, efficient, elegant 📚 What I learned: ✅ How to handle duplicates in permutation problems ✅ How sorting + index tracking helps prune recursion ✅ How to visualize branching decisions and avoid redundant paths ✅ The subtle power of used[] and index-based duplicate checks Have you ever debugged a recursive tree with duplicate values? Let’s swap strategies, dry runs, and visual walkthroughs 💬 #Day46 #Leetcode #Python #Recursion #Backtracking #DryRun #LearnInPublic #CodeNewbie #TechJourney #100DaysOfCode #DSA

🚀 Day 29 of #100DaysOfCode — LeetCode + HackerRank Edition! Today’s challenge was all about precision and pattern matching — and I stuck to the essentials. 🔗 Problem: findSubstring(s, words) (LeetCode) 📌 Challenge: Given a string s and a list of words (all the same length), find all starting indices where the concatenation of all words appears exactly once and without overlap. 🔍 Approach: → Calculated the total length of the target substring using len(words[0]) * len(words) → Built a frequency map using Counter(words) → Used a sliding window of size total_len to scan through s → At each position, extracted word-sized chunks and tracked their frequency → Compared the seen map with the original word_count to validate matches → Appended valid starting indices to the result list 💡 What made it click: → Realized that permutations aren’t necessary — just match word frequencies → Stepping through s in word-sized chunks keeps the logic clean and efficient → Using Counter for both the target and current window made comparison seamless 📚 What I learned: ✅ Frequency maps are a powerful alternative to brute-force approaches ✅ Matching dictionaries directly (seen == word_count) is a validation trick ✅ Clean logic and early breaks make the code both readable and performant Have you solved findSubstring before? Did you go with permutations or lean into frequency maps like I did? Let’s swap strategies 💬 #Day29 #LeetCode #SlidingWindow #StringAlgorithms #Python #ProblemSolving #CleanCode #CodeEveryDay #LearnToCode #CodeNewbie #SoftwareEngineering #TechJourney #100DaysOfCode

🚀 Day 33 of #100DaysOfCode — LeetCode + HackerRank Edition! Today’s challenge was a classic twist on binary search — searching in a rotated sorted array. 🔗 Problem: search(self, nums: List[int], target: int) (LeetCode) 📌 Challenge: Given a rotated sorted array, find the index of a target value in O(log n) time. 🔍 Approach: → Used binary search with a twist: at each step, determined which half of the array is sorted → If the left half is sorted, checked if the target lies within it → If not, searched the right half — and vice versa → Carefully updated low, high, and recalculated mid inside the loop → Avoided brute-force by leveraging the sorted structure of one half at every step 💡 What made it click: → Realized that one half is always sorted, even after rotation → Visualized the array and dry-ran examples like [4,5,6,7,0,1,2] to understand the logic → Fixed a key bug: I was calculating mid only once — moving it inside the loop made everything work! → Debugging this helped me appreciate how small details (like mid placement) can make or break binary search 📚 What I learned: ✅ Binary search can be adapted to rotated arrays with clever logic ✅ Always recalculate mid after updating low and high ✅ Dry runs are powerful for catching logic bugs Have you tackled rotated binary search before? Did you use recursion, iteration, or something else? Let’s swap strategies 💬 #Day33 #LeetCode #BinarySearch #RotatedArray #ProblemSolving #Python #DebuggingJourney #CleanCode #LearnToCode #CodeNewbie #SoftwareEngineering #TechJourney #100DaysOfCode

🚀 Day 32 of #100DaysOfCode — LeetCode + HackerRank Edition! Today’s challenge was all about frequency mapping and subarray logic — solving the Picking Numbers problem from HackerRank. 🔗 Problem: pickingNumbers(a) (HackerRank) 📌 Challenge: Given an array of integers, find the length of the longest subarray where the absolute difference between any two elements is ≤ 1. 🔍 Approach: → Used Python’s Counter to map frequencies of each number → For each number num, calculated freq[num] + freq[num + 1] → Tracked the maximum such sum to find the longest valid subarray → Avoided brute-force by leveraging frequency patterns instead of scanning all subarrays 💡 What made it click: → Realized that valid subarrays must contain only num and num + 1 → Frequency mapping reveals hidden structure in the data → Clean logic with max() and get() made the solution elegant and readable 📚 What I learned: ✅ Frequency-based thinking can simplify subarray problems ✅ Counter is a powerful tool for pattern detection ✅ Avoiding brute-force leads to scalable, efficient solutions ✅ Sharing dry runs and visual walkthroughs helps others grasp the intuition faster Have you tackled Picking Numbers before? Did you go with sorting, brute-force, or frequency mapping like I did? Let’s swap strategies 💬 #Day31 #HackerRank #SubarrayLogic #FrequencyMapping #Python #ProblemSolving #CleanCode #CodeEveryDay #LearnToCode #CodeNewbie #SoftwareEngineering #TechJourney #100DaysOfCode

🚀 Day 51 of #100DaysOfCode — LeetCode + HackerRank Edition Today’s challenge: Spiral Matrix — traverse a matrix in spiral order and return the elements. 🌀🧩 Problem (brief): Given an m x n matrix, return all elements in spiral order (clockwise starting from top-left). 📌 My approach →Use four boundaries: top, bottom, left, right. →Walk: left→right along top, top→bottom along right, right→left along bottom, bottom→top along left. →After each traversal, move the corresponding boundary inward. →Repeat while top <= bottom and left <= right. →Handle edge cases: single row, single column, or empty matrix. 💡 What I learned today: ✅Boundary-driven traversal is a neat pattern — useful for many matrix problems. ✅Always check the top<=bottom and left<=right conditions before traversing opposite sides to avoid duplicates. ✅Dry runs are everything — they reveal off-by-one bugs faster than tests. Let’s share patterns — how do you solve Spiral Matrix? Do you prefer boundary pointers, or recursion (peel the outer layer)? Drop your implementation or edge cases — I’ll compare notes! 👇 #Day51 #100DaysOfCode #LeetCode #Python #DSA #SpiralMatrix #ProblemSolving #CodeNewbie #LearnInPublic

💡 Day 37 of 100 — Minimum Operations to Convert All Elements to Zero (#LeetCode 3542) Today’s problem was an interesting one short in code, but deeper in logic. It was one of those problems where the intuition slowly unfolds as you play with examples. 🧠 What I figured out This problem is all about monotonic stacks a pattern that helps you process elements in increasing or decreasing order efficiently. The key idea: Every time the current number is greater than what’s on top of the stack, it represents a new “operation” needed. By maintaining a non-decreasing stack, you avoid unnecessary repetitions and count exactly when new operations are required. 💻 My thought process At first, I tried to simulate each operation directly which got messy. Then I realized this could be solved cleanly using a stack that tracks when a new increase appears in the sequence. Every rise means one more operation, and when numbers fall, you just pop from the stack. 📊 Complexity: Time — O(n) Space — O(n) 💬 Reflection This one reminded me how often elegant ideas hide in short problems. It’s not about long code it’s about clarity of thought. Sometimes, a single stack can tell the whole story. #100DaysOfLeetCode #Day37 #LeetCodeJourney #Coding #ProblemSolving #Python #DSA

🧠 Day 13 — Thinking in Ranges, Not Just Numbers Today’s LeetCode problem was “Maximum Frequency of an Element After Performing Operations I.” At first, it felt straightforward — perform up to numOperations changes on elements within a range of [-k, k] to maximize frequency. But once I got into it, I realized the real challenge wasn’t the operations — it was understanding how intervals overlap and interact. Here’s the logic I built around it: 🔹 Each number can shift within [num - k, num + k], forming a range of possible values. 🔹 The goal is to find how many such ranges overlap at any point — that overlap represents the maximum achievable frequency. 🔹 I used sorted events and a sweep line approach to track how many intervals are active at any moment. 🔹 The maximum overlap gives the answer — the highest number of elements that can become equal after allowed operations. This problem wasn’t just about code; it was about thinking visually — seeing numbers as segments on a line rather than static values. That shift in perspective changed how I approached it. Thanks to Shishir chaurasiya sir and PrepInsta team One more day, one more layer of understanding peeled back. #Day13 #LeetCode #ProblemSolving #100DaysOfCode #Python #Algorithms #DataStructures #KeepBuilding #DevMindset

Problem: Given a string containing ()[]{}, determine if the parentheses are valid. A string is valid if brackets close in the correct order and type. ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️ My initial intuition: 😎 Thought of using a stack immediately — push openings, pop on closings. ☠️ But the first few implementations broke on tricky cases like ([)]. 🤡 I was popping and comparing in the wrong order and couldn’t figure out how to validate the pairings cleanly. ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️ After careful debugging: 😎 Discovered that flipping my mapping made the logic much simpler: { ')': '(', ']': '[', '}': '{' } 💡 This way, every closing bracket directly tells me which opening it expects. 😎 The stack now works perfectly — last in, first out — catching even the toughest edge cases. 🌟🌟🌟 learned about little micro optimizations: -> to create a local reference of the map helps with access times. -> not unravelling map with .values() calls, instead created a set of opening parenthesis. ✅ Intuition was right this time. 😅 Execution... not so much. #LeetCode #ProblemSolving #Python #LearningJourney #Coding

🚀 Solved LeetCode 3234: Count Substrings with Dominant Ones! 🧠 Just tackled a challenging substring problem: 3234. Count the Number of Substrings With Dominant Ones. The goal is to find all substrings where the count of '1's is greater than or equal to the square of the count of '0's. A simple O(N²) approach is too slow, so a more optimized strategy is needed. My Approach: Key Insight: The condition ones >= zeros² means the number of zeros in any valid substring is small (at most √N). This is the key to optimization. Fix the Endpoint: I iterate through the string, fixing the end of the potential substring. "Zero-Hopping" Technique: From the end, I iterate backward, but instead of going one by one, I "hop" from each '0' to the previous '0'. A precomputed array makes this hop O(1). Efficient Counting: At each hop, I calculate the number of valid start positions in the segment between the two zeros, bringing the total time complexity down to O(N√N). This was a great puzzle in finding the bottleneck and building an algorithm around it! 🔗 Problem Link: https://lnkd.in/gpmZdskg #LeetCode #Coding #Algorithm #Python #ProblemSolving #SoftwareEngineering #Optimization #LeetCode #Coding #Algorithm #Python #Programming #InterviewPrep