CodingMediumcod-g316

Subject Sliding windowLevel Mid–Senior~28 minCommon in Algorithms & data structures interviewsIndustries Software development

Question

Given a string s and integer k, return the length of the longest substring that contains at most k distinct characters. If k is 0, the answer is 0. Constraints: 0 <= len(s) <= 5*10^4, 0 <= k <= 26, s is lowercase letters.

Implement

longest_k_distinct(s: str, k: int) → int

Examples

in["eceba",2]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.

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.