How should I practice Shortest Path Through Numbers Sharing a Digit?

Start by reading the full statement, solve the visible examples, then compare the pattern against related Google phone screen problems in FastPrep.

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Shortest Path Through Numbers Sharing a Digit

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Problem statement

You are given an array of distinct non-negative integers numbers and two values start and end that appear in the array.

Two values are adjacent when their ordinary decimal representations share at least one digit. Find a path from start to end using these adjacencies.

Return a path with the minimum number of edges. Among several shortest paths, return the lexicographically smallest value sequence. Return an empty array when no path exists. The decimal representation of zero contains digit 0.

Function

shortestCommonDigitPath(numbers: int[], start: int, end: int) → int[]

Examples

Example 1

numbers = [1,20,40,41]start = 1end = 20return = [1,41,40,20]

Each consecutive pair shares digit 1, 4, and 0 respectively.

Example 2

numbers = [12,23,34,45]start = 12end = 45return = [12,23,34,45]

The chain shares digits 2, 3, and 4.

Example 3

numbers = [10,22,35]start = 10end = 35return = []

No pair in the array shares a digit.

Constraints

1 <= numbers.length <= 200000.
0 <= numbers[i] <= 10^9, and all values are distinct.
start and end appear in numbers.