Extract Key-Value From Text | Dataford Interview Questions

Write a function to parse and extract specific key-value pairs from a nested, unstructured text document.

Implement extract_key_values(document, keys), returning a dictionary that maps each requested key to its values in document order. Keys use identifier characters plus ., _, and -; assignments use : or =, and values may be quoted, escaped, nested, or repeated.

Input: two strings or a list of strings. Output: dict[str, list[str]]. Quoted delimiters must remain part of the value, and missing keys are omitted.

Example: events { status: pending; status: "needs, review" } with keys = ["status"] returns {"status": ["pending", "needs, review"]}. Constraints: document length is at most 5,000 characters.

Constraints

1 <= len(document) <= 5000
0 <= len(keys) <= 100
Keys begin with a letter or underscore and may contain letters, digits, ., _, and -
Assignments use : or =
Quoted values use matching single or double quotes
Return values as strings and preserve duplicate-key order

Function Signature

def extract_key_values(document, keys):

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