The Odd Extractor

An easy Python interview practice problem on DataDriven. Write the Python and run it against test cases, with instant feedback.

Domain
Python
Difficulty
easy
Seniority
L3

Problem

Given a string of whitespace-separated tokens, parse each as int. Return a list containing only the odd integers in original order.

Not all numbers from a string are welcome here.

Example 1

Input:

s = "1 2 3 4 5 6 7"

Output:

[1,3,5,7]

Example 2

Input:

s = "10 15 22 33"

Output:

[15,33]

Worked solution and explanation

Why this problem exists in real interviews

This tests string splitting, type conversion, and filtering in sequence. It is a common ETL pattern where raw text data needs to be parsed, converted to the appropriate type, and filtered before downstream use.

Break down the requirements

Step 1: Split the string on spaces

Produce a list of string tokens.

Step 2: Convert each token to an integer

Use int() to parse each string token.

Step 3: Filter for odd values

Keep only integers where n % 2 != 0.

The solution

Split, convert, filter in sequence
def extract_odds(s):
    tokens = s.split()
    result = []
    for token in tokens:
        num = int(token)
        if num % 2 != 0:
            result.append(num)
    return result

Common follow-up questions