Code Room
CodingMediumcod-g131
Subject CombinatoricsLevel Mid–Senior~15 minCommon in Algorithms & data structures interviewsIndustries Software development

Question

Return all combinations of k numbers chosen from the range 1..n, each combination as an ascending list, with the overall list sorted lexicographically. For k = 0 return a list containing one empty combination. 1 <= n <= 12, 0 <= k <= n.

Implement
combinations_nk(n: int, k: int) → list[list[int]]
Examples
in[4,2]out[[1,2],[1,3],[1,4],[2,3],[2,4],[3,4]]
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.

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.