Parse Logs or Tools Like ps | Dataford Interview Questions

Scripting: implement a simplified Linux tool such as ps or find, or parse logs.

Asked in the Scripting stage. Implement parse_logs(lines, level) to process structured log lines.

Each line has the form timestamp level process message, with fields separated by single spaces. Return a list of [process, count] pairs for lines whose level equals level. Sort by descending count, then ascending process name. All input lines are valid, and the message may contain spaces.

Example 1: lines = ["10:00 INFO worker started", "10:01 ERROR api failed", "10:02 ERROR worker retrying"], level = "ERROR" returns [["api", 1], ["worker", 1]].

Example 2: lines = ["10:00 WARN api slow", "10:01 WARN api retry", "10:02 INFO worker done"], level = "WARN" returns [["api", 2]].

Constraints

1 <= lines.length <= 5000
Each line has the form timestamp level process message
Fields are separated by single spaces
The message is non-empty and may contain spaces
The requested level is a non-empty string
All input lines are valid

Function Signature

def parse_logs(lines, level):

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