Code RoomLongest common subsequence
MediumPrep Room Coding #738

Longest common subsequence

CodingAlgorithms & data structuresMid–Senior~25 min

Return the length of the longest common subsequence of strings a and b. A subsequence keeps relative order but need not be contiguous; for example "abcde" and "ace" have LCS "ace" of length 3. Either string may be empty (answer 0). Strings can be up to ~1000 characters; an O(len(a)*len(b)) DP is expected, with O(min(len)) space achievable.

Implement
lcs_length(a: str, b: str) → int
Examples
in["abcde","ace"]out3
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 25 min
InputExpectedGot
["abcde","ace"]3not run yetsample