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DSA Patterns and Problem Solving

The document outlines various data structure and algorithm (DSA) patterns along with real-life analogies and problems they solve. Each pattern, such as Sliding Window and Dynamic Programming, is associated with specific algorithmic challenges like Longest Substring and Knapsack. This serves as a guide for understanding and applying these patterns in problem-solving.

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Srinivasa Dasari
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88 views1 page

DSA Patterns and Problem Solving

The document outlines various data structure and algorithm (DSA) patterns along with real-life analogies and problems they solve. Each pattern, such as Sliding Window and Dynamic Programming, is associated with specific algorithmic challenges like Longest Substring and Knapsack. This serves as a guide for understanding and applying these patterns in problem-solving.

Uploaded by

Srinivasa Dasari
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

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DSA Patterns

Pattern Real-Life Analogy Solves


Sliding Window “Peeking through a moving Longest Substring, Max Sum
window” Subarray, Anagrams
Two Pointers “2 fingers walking toward each 2Sum, Reverse Vowels, Sorted
other” Square, Palindrome Check
Fast & Slow Pointers “Tom & Jerry: one fast, one slow Linked List Cycle, Happy Number
”
Binary Search “Guess the number in 7 tries or Rotated Array, First/Last Position,
less” Koko Eating Bananas
DFS / BFS “DFS: Go deep. BFS: Go wide.” Graph Traversals, Flood Fill, Word
Ladder, Shortest Path
Backtracking “Trying all outfits before choosing Sudoku, N-Queens, Word Search,
one ” Permutations
Dynamic Programming “Why re-solve what you’ve Knapsack, House Robber, LIS,
already solved?” Edit Distance
Greedy “Always pick what seems best Activity Selection, Jump Game,
right now” Gas Station
Union-Find (DSU) “Friend circles detection ” Number of Provinces, Kruskal’s
MST, Connected Components
Topological Sort “Finish A before B ” Course Schedule, Task
Scheduling
Prefix Sum / Difference Array “Running totals like bank Range Sum, Subarray Sum Equal
statements ” K, Rainwater Trapping
Monotonic Stack / Queue “Stacking plates or tallest first Next Greater Element, Daily
” Temperatures, Largest Rectangle
Bit Manipulation “Flip switches to solve puzzles Single Number, Count Bits,
” Subsets, XOR problems
Trie (Prefix Tree) “Autocomplete dictionary ” Word Search, StartsWith, Replace
Words
Heap / Priority Queue “Serve most urgent first ” Kth Largest, Top K Elements,
Merge K Lists
Graph (Adjacency List/Matrix) “Follow paths on a map ” Shortest Path, Cycles, Connected
Components
Recursion “Function calling itself — like Tree Problems, Factorial,
Russian dolls ” Subsets, Merge Sort
Segment Tree / Fenwick Tree “Smart range queries ” Range Sum/Min/Max, Updates on
Array
Matrix Traversal “Walk in all directions ” Spiral Order, Island Count,
Diagonal Traversals
Hashing / HashMap “Lookup table memory ” 2Sum, Group Anagrams,
Frequency Counts

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