Implement a Trie and support prefix search + delete

Asked atBoston Consulting Group
1Give yourself 5 minutes
2Answer out loud, not in your head
3Then compare with the answer below
0
Stuck? Show a way to structure it+
  1. 01Represent nodes with children and terminal metadata
  2. 02Insert one character edge at a time
  3. 03Search exact words using terminal flag
  4. 04Traverse prefix then enumerate or count descendants
  5. 05Delete bottom-up only when a node is unused

Reference answer

Then expect these follow-ups

  • How would you rank autocomplete suggestions?

    Tests: follow-up reasoning

  • When is a radix tree better than a trie?

    Tests: follow-up reasoning

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