Code Room
CodingHardcod-g691
Subject Bipartite matchingLevel Senior–Staff~35 minCommon in Algorithms & data structures interviewsIndustries Software development

Question

A bipartite graph has nL nodes on the left (0..nL-1) and nR nodes on the right (0..nR-1). edges is a list of [u, v] meaning left node u connects to right node v. Return the size of a minimum vertex cover: the fewest nodes (from either side) such that every edge has at least one endpoint chosen. Constraints: 1 <= nL, nR <= 200; edges may be empty or contain duplicates.

Implement
min_vertex_cover_bipartite(nL: int, nR: int, edges: list[list[int]]) → int
Examples
in[3,3,[[0,0],[0,1],[1,1],[2,2]]]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.

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.