CodingMediumcod-g290

Subject MstLevel Mid–Senior~30 minCommon in Algorithms & data structures interviewsIndustries Software development

Question

Given a list of points on a 2D plane, the cost to connect two points is the Manhattan distance between them (|x1-x2| + |y1-y2|). Return the minimum total cost to connect all points so that there is exactly one path between any two points (i.e., the minimum spanning tree weight of the complete graph on these points). With 0 or 1 points the cost is 0.

Implement

min_cost_connect_points(points: list[list[int]]) → int

Examples

in[[[0,0],[2,2],[3,10],[5,2],[7,0]]]out20

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.