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Problem: Bulls and Cows

Medium
30 min
Explore the Bulls and Cows number guessing game to learn how to count matching digits by position and value using hash maps. Understand how to return hints formatted as bulls and cows, and practice implementing this logic to sharpen problem-solving skills relevant to coding interviews.

Statement

You are playing a number guessing game called “Bulls and Cows” with a friend.

You write down a secret number, and your friend tries to guess it. After each guess, you provide a hint based on the following:

  • Bulls: The number of digits that are in the correct position in the guess.

  • Cows: The number of digits that are in both the secret and the guess but in different positions. (These are non-bull digits that could become bulls if rearranged.)

Your task is to return a hint for the guess, formatted as “xAyB”, where:

  • x is the number of bulls.

  • y is the number of cows.

Note: Both the secret number and the guess may contain duplicate digits.

Constraints:

  • 1<=1 <= secret.length, guess.length <=103<= 10^3

  • secret.length == guess.length

  • secret and guess consist of digits only.

Problem
Ask
Submissions

Problem: Bulls and Cows

Medium
30 min
Explore the Bulls and Cows number guessing game to learn how to count matching digits by position and value using hash maps. Understand how to return hints formatted as bulls and cows, and practice implementing this logic to sharpen problem-solving skills relevant to coding interviews.

Statement

You are playing a number guessing game called “Bulls and Cows” with a friend.

You write down a secret number, and your friend tries to guess it. After each guess, you provide a hint based on the following:

  • Bulls: The number of digits that are in the correct position in the guess.

  • Cows: The number of digits that are in both the secret and the guess but in different positions. (These are non-bull digits that could become bulls if rearranged.)

Your task is to return a hint for the guess, formatted as “xAyB”, where:

  • x is the number of bulls.

  • y is the number of cows.

Note: Both the secret number and the guess may contain duplicate digits.

Constraints:

  • 1<=1 <= secret.length, guess.length <=103<= 10^3

  • secret.length == guess.length

  • secret and guess consist of digits only.