Code RoomSymmetric difference
EasyPrep Room Coding #441

Symmetric difference

CodingAlgorithms & data structuresEntry–Mid~11 min

Given two integer lists, return the distinct values that appear in exactly one of the two lists — present somewhere in the first but nowhere in the second, or present in the second but not the first (the symmetric difference of their distinct value sets). Duplicates within a single list are irrelevant. Return the values sorted in ascending numeric order so the output is deterministic. For example, [1, 2, 3] and [3, 4] give [1, 2, 4], and two identical lists give an empty list.

Implement
exclusive_values(a: list[int], b: list[int]) → list[int]
Examples
in[[1,2,3],[3,4]]out[1,2,4]
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.

0:00 of about 11 min
InputExpectedGot
[[1,2,3],[3,4]][1,2,4]not run yetsample