Code Room
CodingMedium
Question
Given a list of root words `roots` and a `sentence` of space-separated lowercase words, replace every word in the sentence with the SHORTEST root in `roots` that is a prefix of it; if no root is a prefix, keep the word unchanged. Return the resulting sentence as a single space-separated string. Words and roots are lowercase. `0 <= len(roots) <= 1000`.
Implement
replace_words(roots: list[str], sentence: str) → strExamples
in
[["cat","bat","rat"],"the cattle was rattled by the battery"]out"the cat was rat by the bat"What a strong answer looks like
State your approach and its time/space complexity out loud before you optimize. Handle the edge cases (empty input, duplicates, overflow), and say why you chose this over the brute force. Green tests are the floor, not the grade.
Learn the concepts
Vibe coding: describe the solution in plain language (or narrate it) and the coach grades your approach. Generating runnable code from your description is coming next.
Run or narrate your approach, then ask the coach.