Topological Sort in Dependency Management | Dataford Interview Questions

Explain how you would approach a topological sort problem in the context of dependency management for Netflix services.

Implement the approach as a function that returns a valid service order or [] when the dependency graph contains a cycle. Each dependency is a pair [prerequisite, dependent], and services with no dependency may appear anywhere in the valid order.

Input/output contract: services is a list of unique strings and dependencies is a list of dependency pairs. Return a list containing every service exactly once, or an empty list for cyclic input.

Constraints

0 <= len(services) <= 10^4
0 <= len(dependencies) <= 2 * 10^4
Service names are unique non-empty strings
Each dependency contains two valid service names
Dependency pairs are unique
A dependency [prerequisite, dependent] means prerequisite must appear first

Function Signature

def topological_sort(services, dependencies):

Your question is Topological Sort in Dependency Management. 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

Explain how you would approach a topological sort problem in the context of dependency management for Netflix services.

Constraints

0 <= len(services) <= 10^4
0 <= len(dependencies) <= 2 * 10^4
Service names are unique non-empty strings
Each dependency contains two valid service names
Dependency pairs are unique
A dependency [prerequisite, dependent] means prerequisite must appear first

Function Signature

def topological_sort(services, dependencies):

Your question is Topological Sort in Dependency Management. 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.