Common Coding Questions - Data Structures (Topic Wise)

Legend
⭐ Must Do - Very Important for Interviews

🟢 Easy

🟡 Medium

🔴 Hard

1. Arrays

Basic Operations

1. ⭐🟢 Find the largest and smallest element in an array

2. ⭐🟢 Reverse an array

3. ⭐🟢 Rotate array by K positions (left/right)

4. 🟢 Find the second largest element

5. 🟢 Remove duplicates from sorted array

6. 🟢 Move all zeros to end

7. 🟢 Union and Intersection of two sorted arrays

Searching & Sorting

8. ⭐🟢 Linear Search and Binary Search

9. 🟢 Find missing number in array (1 to N)

10. 🟢 Find the duplicate in array of N+1 integers

11. 🟡 Search in Rotated Sorted Array

12. 🟡 Find First and Last Position of Element in Sorted Array

13. 🟡 Search a 2D Matrix

Subarray Problems

14. ⭐🟡 Maximum Subarray Sum (Kadane's Algorithm)

 15. ⭐🟡 Subarray with Given Sum (Positive numbers)

16. 🟡 Longest Subarray with Sum K

17. 🟡 Subarray with 0 Sum

18. 🔴 Maximum Product Subarray

19. 🔴 Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters

Two Pointer Technique

20. ⭐🟢 Two Sum (Find pair with given sum)

21. 🟡 Three Sum (Find triplets with sum = 0)

22. 🟡 Four Sum

23. 🟡 Container With Most Water

24. 🟡 Remove Duplicates from Sorted Array II

25. 🟡 Sort Colors (Dutch National Flag)

Sliding Window

26. ⭐🟡 Maximum Sum Subarray of Size K

27. 🟡 Longest Substring with K Unique Characters

28. 🟡 Minimum Window Substring

29. 🔴 Sliding Window Maximum

Matrix Problems

30. 🟢 Spiral Matrix Traversal

31. 🟡 Rotate Image/Matrix by 90 degrees

32. 🟡 Set Matrix Zeros

33. 🟡 Search in a Row-Column Sorted Matrix

34. 🔴 Median in Row-Wise Sorted Matrix

Others

35. ⭐🟡 Merge Two Sorted Arrays

36. ⭐🟡 Find Majority Element (Boyer-Moore Voting)

 37. 🟡 Next Permutation

38. 🟡 Stock Buy and Sell (Multiple transactions)

39. 🟡 Trapping Rain Water

40. 🔴 Median of Two Sorted Arrays

2. Strings

Basic Operations

41. ⭐🟢 Reverse a String

42. ⭐🟢 Check if string is Palindrome

43. 🟢 Check if two strings are Anagrams

44. 🟢 Remove duplicates from string

45. 🟢 Check if strings are rotations of each other

46. 🟢 Count vowels and consonants

Pattern Matching

47. ⭐🟡 Implement strStr() / Find Needle in Haystack

48. 🟡 KMP Algorithm for Pattern Matching

49. 🔴 Rabin-Karp Algorithm

Subsequence/Substring

50. ⭐🟡 Longest Common Subsequence (LCS)

51. ⭐🟡 Longest Common Substring

52. 🟡 Longest Palindromic Substring

53. 🟡 Longest Repeating Subsequence

54. 🔴 Distinct Subsequences

String Manipulation

55. 🟢 Valid Parentheses

56. 🟢 Roman to Integer / Integer to Roman

 57. 🟡 Group Anagrams

58. 🟡 Minimum Characters to Make Palindrome

59. 🟡 String to Integer (atoi)

60. 🟡 Longest Valid Parentheses

Others

61. ⭐🟡 Print all permutations of a string

62. 🟡 Edit Distance (Levenshtein Distance)

63. 🟡 Wildcard Pattern Matching

64. 🔴 Regular Expression Matching

65. 🔴 Count and Say

3. Linked Lists

Basic Operations

66. ⭐🟢 Reverse a Linked List (Iterative and Recursive)

67. ⭐🟢 Detect Cycle in Linked List (Floyd's Algorithm)

68. ⭐🟢 Find Middle of Linked List

69. 🟢 Delete a Node in Linked List

70. 🟢 Search an element in Linked List

71. 🟢 Find Length of Linked List

72. 🟢 Insert Node at Beginning/End/Position

Two Pointer Problems

73. ⭐🟡 Find the Starting Point of Cycle

74. ⭐🟡 Remove Nth Node From End

75. 🟡 Check if Linked List is Palindrome

76. 🟡 Intersection Point of Two Linked Lists

Merging & Sorting

 77. ⭐🟡 Merge Two Sorted Linked Lists

78. 🟡 Merge K Sorted Linked Lists

79. 🟡 Sort Linked List (Merge Sort)

80. 🟡 Sort Linked List (Quick Sort)

Advanced Problems

81. 🟡 Add Two Numbers represented by Linked Lists

82. 🟡 Flatten a Multilevel Doubly Linked List

83. 🟡 Clone a Linked List with Random Pointer

84. 🟡 Reverse Nodes in K-Group

85. 🔴 LRU Cache Implementation

Doubly Linked List

86. 🟢 Insert/Delete in Doubly Linked List

87. 🟡 Reverse a Doubly Linked List

88. 🟡 Find pairs with given sum in DLL

4. Stacks

Basic Operations

89. ⭐🟢 Implement Stack using Array

90. ⭐🟢 Implement Stack using Linked List

91. 🟢 Implement two stacks in an array

92. 🟡 Implement Stack using Queue

93. 🟡 Implement Queue using Stack

Stack Problems

94. ⭐🟢 Valid Parentheses / Balanced Brackets

95. ⭐🟡 Next Greater Element

 96. 🟡 Next Smaller Element

97. 🟡 Stock Span Problem

98. 🟡 Largest Rectangle in Histogram

99. 🟡 Maximal Rectangle

Expression Problems

100. 🟡 Infix to Postfix Conversion

101. 🟡 Infix to Prefix Conversion

102. 🟡 Postfix Evaluation

103. 🟡 Prefix Evaluation

Others

104. ⭐🟡 Min Stack (Get Min in O(1))

105. 🟡 Sort a Stack

106. 🟡 Reverse a Stack using Recursion

107. 🟡 Remove Duplicate Letters

108. 🔴 Trapping Rain Water using Stack

5. Queues

Basic Operations

109. ⭐🟢 Implement Queue using Array

110. ⭐🟢 Implement Queue using Linked List

111. 🟢 Implement Circular Queue

112. 🟡 Implement Deque (Double-ended Queue)

113. 🟡 Implement Queue using Stack

Queue Problems

114. 🟢 Reverse a Queue

115. 🟡 First Negative Integer in Every Window of Size K

116. 🟡 Generate Binary Numbers from 1 to N

117. 🟡 Implement Stack using Queue

118. 🔴 Sliding Window Maximum (using Deque)

Priority Queue Problems

119. 🟡 K Closest Points to Origin

120. 🟡 Kth Largest Element in Array

121. 🟡 Top K Frequent Elements

122. 🔴 Merge K Sorted Lists

6. Trees (Binary Trees & BST)

Tree Traversals

123. ⭐🟢 Inorder Traversal (Recursive & Iterative)

124. ⭐🟢 Preorder Traversal (Recursive & Iterative)

125. ⭐🟢 Postorder Traversal (Recursive & Iterative)

126. ⭐🟢 Level Order Traversal (BFS)

127. 🟡 Zigzag Level Order Traversal

128. 🟡 Vertical Order Traversal

129. 🟡 Boundary Traversal

130. 🟡 Diagonal Traversal

Tree Properties

131. ⭐🟢 Height/Depth of Binary Tree

132. ⭐🟢 Diameter of Binary Tree

133. 🟢 Count Number of Nodes

134. 🟢 Sum of all Nodes

135. 🟢 Check if two trees are identical

136. 🟡 Check if tree is Balanced

137. 🟡 Check if tree is Symmetric/Mirror

Binary Search Tree

138. ⭐🟢 Search in BST

139. ⭐🟢 Insert in BST

140. ⭐🟢 Delete in BST

141. ⭐🟢 Validate BST

142. 🟡 Kth Smallest Element in BST

143. 🟡 Kth Largest Element in BST

144. 🟡 Lowest Common Ancestor in BST

145. 🟡 Inorder Successor in BST

146. 🟡 Inorder Predecessor in BST

Tree Construction

147. ⭐🟡 Construct Binary Tree from Inorder and Preorder

148. 🟡 Construct Binary Tree from Inorder and Postorder

149. 🟡 Convert Sorted Array to BST

150. 🟡 Flatten Binary Tree to Linked List

Path Problems

151. ⭐🟡 Root to Leaf Paths

152. ⭐🟡 Maximum Path Sum

153. 🟡 Path Sum (Check if sum exists)

154. 🟡 All Paths with Given Sum

155. 🔴 Binary Tree Maximum Path Sum

Others

156. ⭐🟡 Lowest Common Ancestor (LCA)

157. 🟡 Top View of Binary Tree

158. 🟡 Bottom View of Binary Tree

159. 🟡 Left View of Binary Tree

160. 🟡 Right View of Binary Tree

161. 🟡 Connect Nodes at Same Level

162. 🟡 Serialize and Deserialize Binary Tree

163. 🔴 Morris Traversal (Inorder without Stack)

7. Graphs

Graph Representation

164. ⭐🟢 Adjacency Matrix Representation

165. ⭐🟢 Adjacency List Representation

Graph Traversals

166. ⭐🟢 BFS (Breadth First Search)

167. ⭐🟢 DFS (Depth First Search)

168. 🟢 Count Connected Components

169. 🟡 DFS on 2D Matrix/Grid

Cycle Detection

170. ⭐🟡 Detect Cycle in Undirected Graph

171. ⭐🟡 Detect Cycle in Directed Graph

172. 🟡 Detect Cycle using Union-Find

Shortest Path

173. ⭐🟡 Dijkstra's Algorithm (Shortest Path)

174. 🟡 Bellman-Ford Algorithm

175. 🔴 Floyd-Warshall Algorithm (All Pairs Shortest Path)

Topological Sort

176. ⭐🟡 Topological Sort (DFS)

177. ⭐🟡 Topological Sort (Kahn's Algorithm - BFS)

178. 🟡 Course Schedule Problem

179. 🟡 Alien Dictionary

Minimum Spanning Tree

180. 🟡 Prim's Algorithm

181. 🟡 Kruskal's Algorithm

Graph Coloring & Others

182. 🟡 Bipartite Graph Check

183. 🟡 Number of Islands

184. 🟡 Flood Fill Algorithm

185. 🟡 Surrounded Regions

186. 🟡 Word Ladder

187. 🔴 Strongly Connected Components (Kosaraju/Tarjan)

188. 🔴 Bridges in Graph

189. 🔴 Articulation Points

8. Hashing

HashMap/HashSet Problems

190. ⭐🟢 Two Sum using HashMap

191. 🟢 First Non-Repeating Character

192. 🟢 Find All Duplicates in Array

193. 🟡 Group Anagrams using HashMap

194. 🟡 Longest Consecutive Sequence

195. 🟡 Subarray Sum Equals K

196. 🟡 Count Distinct Elements in Window

Frequency Problems

197. ⭐🟢 Count Frequency of Array Elements

198. 🟡 Top K Frequent Elements

199. 🟡 Sort Array by Frequency

200. 🟡 First Element occurring K times

Others

201. 🟡 4 Sum II

202. 🟡 Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters

203. 🟡 Find Itinerary from Tickets

204. 🔴 LRU Cache using HashMap + DLL

9. Heaps (Priority Queue)

Basic Heap Operations

205. ⭐🟢 Implement Min Heap

206. ⭐🟢 Implement Max Heap

207. 🟢 Heap Sort

208. 🟡 Convert Min Heap to Max Heap

K-based Problems

209. ⭐🟡 Kth Largest Element in Array

210. ⭐🟡 Kth Smallest Element in Array

211. 🟡 K Closest Points to Origin

212. 🟡 Top K Frequent Elements

213. 🟡 K Closest Numbers

214. 🔴 Find Median from Data Stream

Merge Problems

215. ⭐🟡 Merge K Sorted Lists

216. 🟡 Merge K Sorted Arrays

217. 🔴 Smallest Range Covering Elements from K Lists

Others

218. 🟡 Connect N Ropes with Minimum Cost

219. 🟡 Task Scheduler

220. 🔴 IPO (Maximum Capital)

10. Dynamic Programming

Classic DP Problems

221. ⭐🟢 Fibonacci Number (Top-Down & Bottom-Up)

222. ⭐🟡 Climbing Stairs

223. ⭐🟡 0/1 Knapsack Problem

224. ⭐🟡 Longest Common Subsequence (LCS)

225. ⭐🟡 Longest Increasing Subsequence (LIS)

226. ⭐🟡 Edit Distance

227. ⭐🟡 Coin Change Problem

228. 🟡 Coin Change 2 (Count Ways)

229. 🟡 Unbounded Knapsack

Grid/Matrix DP

230. ⭐🟡 Unique Paths in Grid

231. 🟡 Unique Paths II (with Obstacles)

232. 🟡 Minimum Path Sum in Grid

233. 🟡 Maximum Path Sum in Grid

234. 🔴 Dungeon Game

Substring/Subsequence

235. ⭐🟡 Longest Palindromic Subsequence

236. ⭐🟡 Longest Palindromic Substring

237. 🟡 Palindrome Partitioning

238. 🟡 Count Palindromic Substrings

239. 🔴 Minimum Insertions to Make Palindrome

Partition Problems

240. 🟡 Partition Equal Subset Sum

241. 🟡 Minimum Subset Sum Difference

242. 🔴 Count of Subset Sum

String DP

243. 🟡 Wildcard Pattern Matching

244. 🔴 Regular Expression Matching

245. 🟡 Distinct Subsequences

246. 🔴 Interleaving String

Stock Problems

247. 🟡 Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock

248. 🟡 Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock II (Multiple transactions)

249. 🔴 Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock III (At most 2 transactions)

250. 🔴 Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock IV (At most K transactions)

251. 🔴 Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock with Cooldown

Others

252. ⭐🟡 House Robber

253. 🟡 House Robber II (Circular)

254. 🟡 Maximum Product Subarray

255. 🟡 Decode Ways

256. 🟡 Word Break

257. 🔴 Word Break II

258. 🔴 Burst Balloons

259. 🔴 Egg Dropping Problem

260. 🔴 Matrix Chain Multiplication

11. Sorting & Searching

Sorting Algorithms

261. ⭐🟢 Bubble Sort

262. ⭐🟢 Selection Sort

263. ⭐🟢 Insertion Sort

264. ⭐🟡 Merge Sort

265. ⭐🟡 Quick Sort

266. 🟡 Heap Sort

267. 🟡 Counting Sort

268. 🟡 Radix Sort

Binary Search Variants

269. ⭐🟢 Binary Search (Iterative & Recursive)

270. ⭐🟡 Find First and Last Occurrence

271. 🟡 Count Occurrences of Element

272. 🟡 Search in Rotated Sorted Array

273. 🟡 Find Minimum in Rotated Sorted Array

274. 🟡 Find Peak Element

275. 🟡 Square Root using Binary Search

276. 🔴 Median of Two Sorted Arrays

Search in 2D
277. 🟡 Search a 2D Matrix

278. 🟡 Search in Row-Column Sorted Matrix

Others

279. 🟡 Aggressive Cows (Binary Search on Answer)

280. 🟡 Book Allocation Problem

281. 🔴 Painter's Partition Problem

12. Backtracking

Permutation & Combination

282. ⭐🟡 Generate all Permutations

283. ⭐🟡 Generate all Subsets/Power Set

284. 🟡 Combination Sum

285. 🟡 Combination Sum II

286. 🟡 Letter Combinations of Phone Number

287. 🟡 Generate Parentheses

Grid/Matrix Problems

288. ⭐🟡 Rat in a Maze

289. ⭐🟡 N-Queens Problem

290. 🟡 Sudoku Solver

291. 🟡 Word Search in Matrix

292. 🔴 Word Search II

Others

293. 🟡 Palindrome Partitioning

294. 🟡 Restore IP Addresses

295. 🔴 Remove Invalid Parentheses

296. 🔴 Expression Add Operators

13. Greedy Algorithms

Basic Greedy

297. ⭐🟢 Activity Selection Problem

298. ⭐🟡 Fractional Knapsack

299. 🟡 Job Sequencing Problem

300. 🟡 Minimum Platforms Required

Interval Problems

301. 🟡 Merge Intervals

302. 🟡 Insert Interval

303. 🟡 Non-overlapping Intervals

304. 🟡 Meeting Rooms

Others

305. 🟡 Jump Game

306. 🟡 Jump Game II

307. 🟡 Gas Station

308. 🟡 Candy Distribution

309. 🔴 Minimum Number of Arrows to Burst Balloons

14. Bit Manipulation

Basic Operations

310. ⭐🟢 Check if number is Power of 2

311. ⭐🟢 Count Set Bits (Brian Kernighan's Algorithm)

312. 🟢 Find the only non-repeating element

313. 🟢 Swap two numbers without temp

314. 🟢 Check if ith bit is set

XOR Problems

315. ⭐🟡 Single Number (Find unique element)

316. 🟡 Single Number II (one element once, rest thrice)

317. 🟡 Single Number III (two unique elements)

318. 🟡 Find XOR from L to R

Others

319. 🟡 Power Set using Bit Manipulation

320. 🟡 Gray Code

321. 🔴 Maximum XOR of Two Numbers

322. 🔴 Count Total Set Bits from 1 to N

15. Trie (Prefix Tree)

323. ⭐🟡 Implement Trie (Insert, Search, StartsWith)

324. 🟡 Longest Common Prefix using Trie

325. 🟡 Word Search II (using Trie)

326. 🔴 Maximum XOR of Two Numbers using Trie

327. 🔴 Design Search Autocomplete System

16. Disjoint Set Union (Union-Find)

328. ⭐🟡 Implement Union-Find with Path Compression

329. 🟡 Number of Connected Components

330. 🟡 Detect Cycle in Undirected Graph

331. 🟡 Redundant Connection

332. 🔴 Accounts Merge

17. Segment Tree / Fenwick Tree (Advanced)
333. 🔴 Range Sum Query (Mutable)

334. 🔴 Range Minimum Query

335. 🔴 Count of Smaller Numbers After Self

18. Mathematical Problems

336. ⭐🟢 Check if Prime Number

337. ⭐🟢 GCD (Greatest Common Divisor)

338. ⭐🟢 LCM (Least Common Multiple)

339. 🟢 Sieve of Eratosthenes (Prime numbers up to N)

340. 🟢 Prime Factorization

341. 🟢 Factorial of Large Number

342. 🟡 Power (x^n) - Efficient calculation

343. 🟡 Palindrome Number

344. 🟡 Reverse Integer

345. 🟡 Excel Sheet Column Number

346. 🔴 Ugly Number II

347. 🔴 Super Pow

19. Matrix/2D Array

348. 🟢 Matrix Multiplication

349. 🟢 Transpose of Matrix

350. 🟡 Rotate Matrix 90 degrees

351. 🟡 Spiral Matrix Print

352. 🟡 Search in Row-Column Sorted Matrix

353. 🟡 Kth Smallest Element in Sorted Matrix

354. 🔴 Median in Row-Wise Sorted Matrix

Study Tips for Interview Preparation:

Priority Order:

1. Start with ⭐ Must Do questions

2. Master 🟢 Easy problems first

3. Move to 🟡 Medium problems

4. Attempt 🔴 Hard problems later

Practice Strategy:

Solve at least 2-3 problems daily

Focus on understanding patterns, not memorizing

Implement solutions in your preferred language

Practice explaining your approach (important for interviews)

Time yourself while solving

Company-wise Focus:

FAANG/Top Tech: All topics, especially DP, Graphs, Trees

Product-based: Arrays, Strings, Trees, DP

Service-based: Basic DS questions, Arrays, Strings, Sorting

Recommended Platforms:

LeetCode

GeeksforGeeks

HackerRank

CodeChef

Codeforces
 InterviewBit

Total Questions: 354+

Remember: Understanding the approach and pattern is more important than memorizing solutions!