Card Shuffling Program | Dataford Interview Questions

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Problem

Applied Epic workflows may need to randomize a set of cards used in training or simulation exercises. Implement a function that produces a uniformly shuffled copy of a deck using the Fisher-Yates algorithm.

For deterministic evaluation, the function receives random_values. During the shuffle, each value supplies the selected swap index for one iteration. The first value is used when i = n - 1, the second when i = n - 2, and so on. Every supplied value must already satisfy 0 <= random_values[k] <= i for its iteration.

The original deck must remain unchanged. Return a new list containing exactly the same cards, each appearing once.

Formal Specification

Input: deck, a list of distinct strings, and random_values, a list of integers with length max(0, len(deck) - 1).
Output: A new list containing a permutation of deck.
Do not call Python's built-in shuffle function.

Constraints

0 <= len(deck) <= 10^5
All card labels are distinct strings
len(random_values) = max(0, len(deck) - 1)
For iteration i, the corresponding random value satisfies 0 <= random_value <= i

Function Signature

def shuffle_deck(deck, random_values):