DELETE vs TRUNCATE | Dataford Interview Questions

What is the difference between DELETE and TRUNCATE?

Asked in the Technical round 3 stage. Asked with normalization / normal forms.

Implement an in-memory simulation: DELETE removes records whose IDs are listed, while TRUNCATE removes every record.

Input and Output

records is a list of dictionaries containing an integer id. operation is either "DELETE" or "TRUNCATE". ids is a list of IDs used only by DELETE. Return the remaining records in their original order.

Constraints

0 <= len(records) <= 10^5
0 <= len(ids) <= 10^5
Each record contains an integer id field
operation is either DELETE or TRUNCATE
Records must remain in their original order

Function Signature

def apply_operation(records, operation, ids):

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