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Sparse Matrix-Vector Multiplication
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Sparse Matrix-Vector Multiplication

MediumPython

Problem

Implement an efficient sparse matrix times vector multiplication. Asked in the AI coding stage.

Write a function that takes a sparse matrix and a dense vector, then returns the product as a list of row sums. The matrix is represented as a list of rows, where each row is a list of [column_index, value] pairs for nonzero entries only.

Function Input

  • matrix: List[List[List[int]]]
  • vector: List[int]

Output

  • Return List[int] where result[i] is the dot product of row i with vector.

Constraints

  • 0 <= len(matrix) <= 10^4
  • 0 <= len(vector) <= 10^4
  • Each row contains only nonzero entries as [column_index, value] pairs
  • 0 <= column_index < len(vector) for every entry
  • The total number of nonzero entries across all rows is at most 10^5
  • Values fit in 32-bit signed integers

Function Signature

def sparse_matrix_vector_multiply(matrix, vector):
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