Find connected components in interval list
Last updated: May 24, 2026
Quick Overview
Given a list of intervals, your task is to find and return the connected components formed by overlapping intervals. Two intervals are considered connected if they overlap or touch each other. The output should be a list of lists, where each inner list contains the intervals that form a connected component.
HashiCorp
May 24, 202650
15
3,616 solved
Given a list of intervals, your task is to find and return the connected components formed by overlapping intervals. Two intervals are considered connected if they overlap or touch each other. The output should be a list of lists, where each inner list contains the intervals that form a connected component.
Coding interviews at HashiCorp focus on problem-solving approach as much as the final solution. The interviewer wants to see you break down the problem, consider edge cases, and optimize iteratively. Communication throughout the process is key.
What the Interviewer Expects
- Recognize the underlying problem pattern (sliding window, two pointers, BFS/DFS, etc.)
- Discuss multiple approaches and trade-offs before coding
- Implement an optimal solution with clean, production-quality code
- Handle all edge cases including boundary conditions and invalid input
- Optimize both time and space complexity with clear justification
- Test your solution systematically with well-chosen examples
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 optimize the space complexity of your solution?
- Can you solve this in a single pass?
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Problem Analysis
To solve the problem of finding connected components in a list of intervals, we need to identify overlapping or touching intervals. The key insight here is that this is a sorting and merging problem. ...
Approach
- Sort the Intervals: First, sort the intervals based on their start values. For example, given intervals
[[1, 3], [2, 4], [5, 7]], sorting will result in[[1, 3], [2, 4], [5, 7]]. - **Init...
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