Sorting Property Data by Criteria | Dataford Interview Questions

Your question is Sorting Property Data by Criteria. Start with the requirements on the right.

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Problem

Zillow listing cards can be sorted by several user-selected criteria, such as price, bedrooms, or address. Implement a function that returns the properties in the requested priority order.

Formal Specification

Write sort_properties(properties, criteria), where:

properties is a list of dictionaries. Each dictionary contains numeric fields price, bedrooms, bathrooms, and days_on_zillow, plus a string field address.
criteria is a non-empty list of dictionaries. Each criterion has a valid field and an order, either "asc" or "desc". Criteria are listed from highest to lowest priority.
Return a new list containing the same property dictionaries, sorted according to every criterion. Do not mutate the input list.
Sorting must be stable: properties equal under all criteria retain their original relative order.

Constraints

1 <= len(properties) <= 10^5
1 <= len(criteria) <= 5
Each criterion field exists in every property
Each criterion order is either "asc" or "desc"
Criterion fields are unique
Numeric property fields are non-negative

Function Signature

def sort_properties(properties, criteria):