Question bank › Sliding Window
Dsa Sliding Window Easy

The Rare Variety

An archaeologist is cataloging artifacts found in a trench. Each artifact has a type ID (integer). To ensure a representative sample for the museum, they need to find the shortest contiguous segment of artifacts that contains at least K distinct types of artifacts. Input Format: - The first line contains two integers: K (the number of distinct types required) and N (the total number of artifacts). - The second line contains N space-separated integers representing the artifact type IDs. Output Format: - Print a single integer representing the length of the shortest segment. If no such segment exists, print 0. Example: Input: 3 6 1 2 1 3 2 3 Output: 3 Explanation: The segment [1, 3, 2] or [2, 1, 3] both have length 3 and contain 3 distinct types.

Key concepts

sliding_windowhash_mapfrequency_count

Practise this out loud — free

Start a mock interview on THIS exact question — a voice AI interviewer opens with it, pushes back like a real onsite, then hands you an instant scorecard.

🎙 Practise this question now
Part of InterviewLab's verified interview question bank. We show the prompt and concepts to practise with — never a copy-paste solution.