Shortest Unique Metric Tag

A medium Python interview practice problem on DataDriven. Write and execute real python code with instant grading.

Domain

Python

Difficulty

medium

Seniority

L5

Problem

A metrics platform stores fully-qualified metric names like 'bookings.checkout.success_rate'. Dashboards autocomplete a metric from any contiguous substring of its name, so each metric needs the shortest substring of its own name that does not appear inside any other metric's name. Given a list of metric names, return a list of the same length where the i-th entry is the shortest contiguous substring of metrics[i] that is not a substring of any other metric in the list. If multiple substrings of the same metric tie for the shortest length, return the lexicographically smallest one. If every substring of metrics[i] also appears in some other metric's name, return an empty string for that metric.

Summary

One token per metric. Make it unambiguous.

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