Detect anagram in array
Last updated: February 3, 2026
Quick Overview
Given array, detect all occurrences of the anagram pattern.
Shopify
February 3, 202635
10
961 solved
Given array, detect all occurrences of the anagram pattern.
This coding problem is frequently asked during Take-home Project at Shopify. The interviewer is testing your ability to translate a problem into clean, working code while discussing time and space complexity. Shopify expects candidates to write production-quality code, not just solve the puzzle.
What the Interviewer Expects
- Quickly identify the optimal approach and its theoretical basis
- Handle complex algorithm design with multiple interacting components
- Write concise, elegant code under time pressure
- Prove correctness of your approach and discuss alternative solutions
- Optimize beyond the obvious: discuss constant factor improvements
- Address follow-up variations and explain how the solution generalizes
Key Topics to Cover
How to Approach This
- Clarify input constraints and edge cases before writing code.
- Walk through your approach verbally and confirm with the interviewer before coding.
- Start with a brute force solution, then optimize. Mention time and space complexity.
- Test your solution with examples, including edge cases like empty input or duplicates.
- Consider common patterns: sliding window, two pointers, hash map, BFS/DFS, dynamic programming.
Possible Follow-up Questions
- What if the input doesn't fit in memory?
- Can you solve this in a single pass?
- Can you optimize the space complexity of your solution?
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Practice DSA ProblemsSample Answer
Problem Analysis
To detect anagrams in an array, we can leverage the concept of frequency counting, which maps each character of the word to its frequency count. This approach aligns with the idea of using hash maps. ...
Approach
- Create a frequency map for the target anagram pattern. For example, if the pattern is 'abc', the frequency map would be {'a': 1, 'b': 1, 'c': 1}.
- Initialize a sliding window of the same ...
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