Top K Error Codes | Dataford Interview Questions

Rivian and VW Group Technology collect real-time vehicle sensor events containing integer error codes. Given one finite stream of error codes and an integer k, return the k most frequent distinct error codes without storing the complete stream.

If multiple codes have the same frequency, return the smaller numeric code first. The output must be ordered by decreasing frequency, then increasing error code.

Formal Specification

Implement top_k_error_codes(error_codes, k), where error_codes is an iterable of integers and k is a positive integer. Return a list containing the k most frequent distinct codes. The input guarantees that 1 <= k <= the number of distinct codes.

Your algorithm should count the stream in one pass, then use a min-heap to retain only the best k codes while processing the frequency map.

Constraints

1 <= len(error_codes) <= 10^6
1 <= k <= number of distinct error codes
0 <= error_codes[i] <= 10^9
The stream contains integer error codes only
Do not store the complete input stream as an additional data structure

Function Signature

def top_k_error_codes(error_codes, k):

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