In-Place Trim Without Libraries | Dataford Interview Questions

You have a string with leading, trailing, and in-between whitespaces; modify it in-place without using library functions so it has no leading or trailing spaces.

Because Python strings are immutable, represent the string as a mutable list of single-character strings. The function must mutate and return that list, preserve all internal spaces, and use only manual scanning and assignment rather than string trimming methods.

Constraints

chars is a list of single-character strings
0 <= len(chars) <= 10^5
Whitespace is represented by the ASCII space character ' '
All non-space characters must be preserved in their original order
The input list must be modified in place

Function Signature

def trim_spaces(chars):

Your question is In-Place Trim Without Libraries. Start with the requirements in the Question tab.

Run and submit as often as you like. When you're ready, talk me through your approach or go straight to the code.

Problem

You have a string with leading, trailing, and in-between whitespaces; modify it in-place without using library functions so it has no leading or trailing spaces.

Constraints

chars is a list of single-character strings
0 <= len(chars) <= 10^5
Whitespace is represented by the ASCII space character ' '
All non-space characters must be preserved in their original order
The input list must be modified in place

Function Signature

def trim_spaces(chars):

Your question is In-Place Trim Without Libraries. Start with the requirements in the Question tab.

Run and submit as often as you like. When you're ready, talk me through your approach or go straight to the code.