Merge Overlapping Intervals for Timeline Events
Last updated: April 5, 2025
Quick Overview
Given a collection of time intervals representing design element animations, merge all overlapping intervals and return the consolidated timeline.
Canva
April 5, 20256
3
4,567 solved
Given a collection of time intervals representing design element animations, merge all overlapping intervals and return the consolidated timeline.
Canva's presentation and video features involve timeline management where animations and transitions have time intervals. Merging overlapping intervals is needed for timeline optimization, collision detection, and rendering scheduling. This tests fundamental algorithmic thinking with clean code.
What the Interviewer Expects
- Sort intervals by start time and merge in a single pass
- Handle edge cases (empty input, single interval, fully contained intervals)
- Write clean, readable code with proper variable naming
- Analyze time and space complexity
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
- How would you insert a new interval into an already-merged list efficiently?
- How would you find the gaps between merged intervals?
- What if intervals have associated metadata that needs to be combined during merge?
Sharpen Your Skills on Codemia
Practice similar problems with our interactive workspace, get AI feedback, and track your progress.
Practice DSA ProblemsSample Answer
Problem Analysis
To solve the problem of merging overlapping intervals, we can identify that this is a classic case for using a sorting algorithm followed by a linear scan to merge intervals. The reason this approach ...
Approach
- Sort the Intervals: Start by sorting the list of intervals based on their start times. For example, given intervals
[[1,3], [2,6], [8,10], [15,18]], after sorting, they remain the same, as th...
Submit Your Answer
