Code Room
CodingHardcod-g823
Subject StringsLevel Mid–Senior~32 minCommon in Algorithms & data structures interviewsIndustries Software development

Question

Given a lowercase string s and a lowercase string t, return the shortest substring (window) of s that contains every character of t including multiplicity (a character needed twice must appear at least twice in the window). If no such window exists, return the empty string. If multiple shortest windows tie, return the leftmost. Lengths up to a few thousand.

Implement
min_window_substring(s: str, t: str) → str
Examples
in["adobecodebanc","abc"]out"banc"
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.