How should I practice Spiral Matrix Traversal?

Start by reading the full statement, solve the visible examples, then compare the pattern against related Microsoft onsite interview problems in FastPrep.

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FastPrep tags this as a Microsoft onsite interview coding practice problem when the problem catalog has that company and stage context.

Problem · Matrix

Spiral Matrix Traversal

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Problem statement

Given a non-empty rectangular integer matrix matrix and a boolean clockwise, return all values in spiral order.

When clockwise is true, start at the top-left cell and initially move right.
When clockwise is false, start at the top-left cell and initially move down.
Visit every cell exactly once.

Function

spiralOrder(matrix: int[][], clockwise: boolean) → int[]

Examples

Example 1

matrix = [[1,2,3],[4,5,6],[7,8,9]]clockwise = truereturn = [1,2,3,6,9,8,7,4,5]

The traversal follows the top row, right edge, bottom row, left edge, and then the center.

Example 2

matrix = [[1,2,3,4,5]]clockwise = falsereturn = [1,2,3,4,5]

A single row has only one possible visit order from the top-left cell.

Constraints

matrix has at least one row and one column.
Every row has the same number of columns.
Every matrix value is a signed integer.