Search⌘ K
AI Features

Solution: Sort Items by Groups Respecting Dependencies

Explore how to solve the problem of sorting items grouped by dependencies by implementing hierarchical topological sort on both item and group levels. Understand how to manage two-level dependencies, handle ungrouped items, detect cycles, and produce a valid global order that respects both dependency and group continuity constraints.

Statement

You are given nn items indexed from 00 to n1n − 1. Each item belongs to 00 or one of m groups, described by the array group, where:

  • group[i] represents the group of the ithi^{th} item.

  • If group[i] ==1==-1, the item isn’t assigned to any existing group and should be treated as belonging to its own unique group.

You’re also given a list, beforeItems, where beforeItems[i] contains all items that must precede item ii in the final ordering.

Your goal is to arrange all nn items in a list that satisfies both of the following rules:

  1. Dependency order: Every item must appear after all the items listed in beforeItems[i].

  2. Group continuity: All items that belong to the same group must appear next to each other in the final order.

If there are multiple valid orderings, return any of them. If there’s no possible ordering, return an empty list.

Constraints:

  • 1 ...