Star Path Without Crossing | Dataford Interview Questions

Given a star, how would you reach all points without crossing over other points and only travel straight until the end?

Treat the star's points as distinct 2D coordinates. Starting at start, visit every point exactly once, and require each straight segment to avoid passing through any other point. Return the minimum-distance route as point indices, or [] if no valid route exists.

Function signature: def shortest_star_route(points, start): Input is a list of [x, y] coordinates and a starting index. Output is an ordered list of all point indices.

Constraints

1 <= len(points) <= 15
Each point is represented as [x, y]
All points are distinct
-10^6 <= x, y <= 10^6
0 <= start < len(points)
Each point must appear exactly once in the returned route

Function Signature

def shortest_star_route(points, start):

Your question is Star Path Without Crossing. 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

Given a star, how would you reach all points without crossing over other points and only travel straight until the end?

Function signature: def shortest_star_route(points, start): Input is a list of [x, y] coordinates and a starting index. Output is an ordered list of all point indices.

Constraints

1 <= len(points) <= 15
Each point is represented as [x, y]
All points are distinct
-10^6 <= x, y <= 10^6
0 <= start < len(points)
Each point must appear exactly once in the returned route

Function Signature

def shortest_star_route(points, start):

Your question is Star Path Without Crossing. 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.