Design a food rating system that can do the following:
Implement the FoodRatings
class:
FoodRatings(String[] foods, String[] cuisines, int[] ratings)
Initializes the system. The food items are described by foods
, cuisines
and ratings
, all of which have a length of n
.
foods[i]
is the name of the i<sup>th</sup>
food,cuisines[i]
is the type of cuisine of the i<sup>th</sup>
food, andratings[i]
is the initial rating of the i<sup>th</sup>
food.void changeRating(String food, int newRating)
Changes the rating of the food item with the name food
.String highestRated(String cuisine)
Returns the name of the food item that has the highest rating for the given type of cuisine
. If there is a tie, return the item with the lexicographically smaller name.Example:
Input
["FoodRatings", "highestRated", "highestRated", "changeRating", "highestRated", "changeRating", "highestRated"]
[[["kimchi", "miso", "sushi", "moussaka", "ramen", "bulgogi"], ["korean", "japanese", "japanese", "greek", "japanese", "korean"], [9, 12, 8, 15, 14, 7]], ["korean"], ["japanese"], ["sushi", 16], ["japanese"], ["ramen", 16], ["japanese"]]
Output
[null, "kimchi", "ramen", null, "sushi", null, "ramen"]
Explanation
FoodRatings foodRatings = new FoodRatings(["kimchi", "miso", "sushi", "moussaka", "ramen", "bulgogi"], ["korean", "japanese", "japanese", "greek", "japanese", "korean"], [9, 12, 8, 15, 14, 7]);
foodRatings.highestRated("korean"); // return "kimchi"
// "kimchi" is the highest rated korean food with a rating of 9.
foodRatings.highestRated("japanese"); // return "ramen"
// "ramen" is the highest rated japanese food with a rating of 14.
foodRatings.changeRating("sushi", 16); // "sushi" now has a rating of 16.
foodRatings.highestRated("japanese"); // return "sushi"
// "sushi" is the highest rated japanese food with a rating of 16.
foodRatings.changeRating("ramen", 16); // "ramen" now has a rating of 16.
foodRatings.highestRated("japanese"); // return "ramen"
// Both "sushi" and "ramen" have a rating of 16.
// However, "ramen" is lexicographically smaller than "sushi".
When you get asked this question in a real-life environment, it will often be ambiguous (especially at FAANG). Make sure to ask these questions in that case:
The brute force method for designing a food rating system involves going through all possible combinations of food, cuisine, and rating updates. We will exhaustively search for the best rated food of a specific cuisine by checking every food item within that cuisine and comparing ratings.
Here's how the algorithm would work step-by-step:
class FoodRatings:
def __init__(self, foods, cuisines, ratings):
self.foods = foods
self.cuisines = cuisines
self.ratings = ratings
def changeRating(self, food, newRating):
for index, current_food in enumerate(self.foods):
if current_food == food:
self.ratings[index] = newRating
break
def highestRated(self, cuisine):
highest_rating = -1
highest_rated_food_for_cuisine = None
# Iterate through all food items in the system
for index, current_food in enumerate(self.foods):
# Check if the current food belongs to the target cuisine
if self.cuisines[index] == cuisine:
# Compare current food's rating to the highest rating seen so far
if self.ratings[index] > highest_rating:
highest_rating = self.ratings[index]
highest_rated_food_for_cuisine = current_food
elif self.ratings[index] == highest_rating:
#Break Ties by using lexicographical order if the ratings match
if current_food < highest_rated_food_for_cuisine:
highest_rated_food_for_cuisine = current_food
return highest_rated_food_for_cuisine
To design the food rating system efficiently, we should focus on storing and retrieving information quickly. The key is to use data structures that allow us to easily find the highest-rated food in a specific cuisine without looking at every single food item each time.
Here's how the algorithm would work step-by-step:
class FoodRatingSystem:
def __init__(self, foods, cuisines, ratings):
self.food_to_cuisine = {}
self.food_to_rating = {}
self.cuisine_to_foods = {}
for i in range(len(foods)):
food = foods[i]
cuisine = cuisines[i]
rating = ratings[i]
self.food_to_cuisine[food] = cuisine
self.food_to_rating[food] = rating
# Use a sorted list to track top foods efficiently
if cuisine not in self.cuisine_to_foods:
self.cuisine_to_foods[cuisine] = []
self.cuisine_to_foods[cuisine].append((rating, food))
for cuisine in self.cuisine_to_foods:
self.cuisine_to_foods[cuisine].sort(key=lambda x: (-x[0], x[1]))
def changeRating(self, food, new_rating):
self.food_to_rating[food] = new_rating
cuisine = self.food_to_cuisine[food]
# Update rating and sort the list of foods
foods_in_cuisine = self.cuisine_to_foods[cuisine]
for i in range(len(foods_in_cuisine)):
if foods_in_cuisine[i][1] == food:
foods_in_cuisine[i] = (new_rating, food)
break
self.cuisine_to_foods[cuisine].sort(key=lambda x: (-x[0], x[1]))
def highestRated(self, cuisine):
# Retrieve highest rated food directly from sorted list
return self.cuisine_to_foods[cuisine][0][1]
Case | How to Handle |
---|---|
Empty food array or cuisine array | Return immediately or throw an exception as no operations can be performed on empty data. |
Arrays of food, cuisines, and ratings have different lengths | Throw an IllegalArgumentException since the inputs are inconsistent and will cause errors. |
Food names contain special characters or are very long | Sanitize the food names during input to prevent injection attacks and potential issues with indexing/lookup. |
Ratings are negative or zero | Throw an exception or treat them as invalid ratings and skip them, documenting the behaviour. |
Cuisines are empty strings | Treat the food as not belonging to any cuisine, or assign it to a default/unspecified cuisine. |
Large number of foods and cuisines, potential memory issues | Use efficient data structures (e.g., HashMaps) and consider limiting the number of stored food items or cuisines to prevent memory exhaustion. |
Multiple foods with the same name but different cuisine and rating | The last entered or first entered can be the deciding factor when multiple foods have same name. |
Requesting the best rated food for a cuisine that does not exist | Return null or a specific error value (e.g., an empty string) indicating the cuisine is not found. |