Container With Most Water
Given an array of heights, find the maximum area between two vertical lines that can hold water.
Trapping Rain Water
Given an array of non-negative integers representing an elevation map, compute how much water it can trap after raining.
Sort Colors (Dutch National Flag)
Implement the Dutch National Flag algorithm to sort an array of 0, 1, 2 in one pass.
Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters
Implement a function that returns the length of the longest substring without repeating characters.
Minimum Window Substring
Implement a sliding window algorithm to find the minimum window substring containing all characters of a given pattern.
Character Replacement Window
Given a string and a number k, find the length of the longest substring that can be made uniform by replacing at most k characters.
Permutation in String
Determine if any permutation of a shorter string appears as a contiguous substring in a longer string using an efficient sliding window.
Count Nice Subarrays
Given an array of integers, count the number of contiguous subarrays that contain exactly k odd numbers.
Subarrays with K different ints
Count the number of contiguous subarrays that contain exactly K distinct integers.
Reduce array to zero
Given an array of non-negative integers, each operation chooses two indices and subtracts 1 from each if both are positive. Return the minimum number of operations to reduce the array to all zeros, or -1 if impossible.
Reverse Pairs Count
Implement a function to count reverse pairs in an array efficiently.
Two Sum Sorted
Given a 1-indexed sorted array and a target, return the two indices that add up to the target.
Three Sum
Given an array of integers, return all unique triplets that sum to zero.
Closest Three Sum
Given an array of integers and a target, return the sum of three numbers that is closest to the target.
Squares of Sorted Array
Implement a function that returns a sorted list of squares for a given non-decreasing integer array.
Interval List Intersections
Given two lists of sorted, disjoint intervals, return the list of intersections between them.
Minimum Size Subarray Sum
Given an array of positive integers, return the minimal length of a contiguous subarray with sum at least target, or 0 if none exists.
Fruit into Baskets
Given an array of integers representing fruit types, return the maximum number of fruits you can collect in a contiguous subarray with at most two distinct types.
Binary Subarray with Sum
Given a binary list and a goal sum, count the number of subarrays that add up to that goal.
Subarray product less than K
Count contiguous subarrays where the product of all elements is strictly less than a target K.
Boats to Save People – Two Pointer
Implement a function that returns the minimum number of boats needed to rescue everyone, given a weight limit and each boat carrying at most two people.
Container With Most Water
Compute the maximum area between two vertical lines in an array of heights.
Trapping Rain Water (Two Pointers)
Given an array of non-negative integers representing elevation heights, compute how much water can be trapped after rain.
Four Sum
Find all unique quadruplets in an array that sum to a given target.
Longest Repeating Character Replacement
Given a string and an integer k, return the length of the longest substring that can be made of identical characters after at most k replacements.
Count Nice Subarrays
Count subarrays that contain exactly k odd numbers.
Showing 26 challenges · Two Pointers & Sliding Window
Two Pointers & Sliding Window — Python coding challenges
What you will find here
This page lists two pointers & sliding window challenges — real Python problems you solve in the browser IDE with instant test feedback. Each challenge includes a clear brief, starter code, and automated checks.
Challenges vs tutorials and quizzes
Challenges test what you can build under constraints. For guided teaching, use our Python tutorials. For quick checks, try quizzes or copy snippets from code samples.