How should I practice Sort a Quadratic-Transformed Array?

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

Is Sort a Quadratic-Transformed Array associated with LinkedIn?

FastPrep tags this as a LinkedIn phone screen coding practice problem when the problem catalog has that company and stage context.

Sort a Quadratic-Transformed Array

LinkedIn● MediumFULLTIMEPHONE SCREEN

Learn

Problem statement

You are given an integer array nums sorted in nondecreasing order and three integer coefficients a, b, and c. Apply f(x) = a * x * x + b * x + c to every element and return all resulting values in nondecreasing order.

Retain every occurrence: equal inputs or equal transformed values must not be removed.
For this exercise, an empty input returns an empty array, and repeated input values are allowed.
Your solution must run in O(n) time, where n = nums.length.

For this exercise, the numeric limits below ensure every transformed value fits in a signed 32-bit integer. The coefficients may be positive, negative, or zero.

Function

sortQuadraticTransform(nums: int[], a: int, b: int, c: int) → int[]

Examples

Example 1

nums = [-4,-2,2,4]a = 1b = 3c = 5return = [3,9,15,33]

The transformed values in input order are [9,3,15,33]. Returning them in sorted order gives [3,9,15,33].

Example 2

nums = [-4,-2,2,4]a = -1b = 3c = 5return = [-23,-5,1,7]

The transformed values are [-23,-5,7,1]. Sorting retains all four occurrences and gives [-23,-5,1,7].

Example 3

nums = []a = 0b = 0c = 8return = []

There are no elements to transform, so the result is empty.

Constraints

0 <= nums.length <= 2000.
-1000 <= nums[i] <= 1000; nums is sorted in nondecreasing order.
-100 <= a, b, c <= 100.
All inputs are integers. Under these practice bounds, |f(x)| <= 100100100, so exact signed 32-bit arithmetic is sufficient.