Analyze Meme Trends - codepath/compsci_guides GitHub Wiki

Unit 4 Session 1 Standard (Click for link to problem statements)

U-nderstand

Understand what the interviewer is asking for by using test cases and questions about the problem.

• Q: What is the structure of the input?

  • A: The input is a list of dictionaries, where each dictionary contains a meme's name (string) and a list of daily repost counts (list of integers).

• Q: What is the output?

  • A: The output is a string representing the name of the meme with the highest average reposts over the specified time range.

• Q: How should ties be handled when multiple memes have the same average reposts?

  • A: The function should return the meme that appears first in the list.

• Q: What should be done if the time range is invalid (e.g., start_day > end_day)?

  • A: The problem assumes the time range is valid, but adding error handling would improve robustness.

P-lan

Plan the solution with appropriate visualizations and pseudocode.

General Idea: Iterate over each meme in the list, calculate the average reposts for the specified time range, and track the meme with the highest average.

1) Initialize `max_average` to a value that cannot be a valid average, such as -1.
2) Initialize `trending_meme` to `None` to store the name of the meme with the highest average reposts.
3) For each meme in the list:
   a) Extract the repost counts within the specified time range.
   b) Calculate the average of these repost counts.
   c) If this average is higher than `max_average`, update `max_average` and `trending_meme`.
4) After processing all memes, return the `trending_meme`.

**⚠️ Common Mistakes**

- Incorrectly slicing the repost counts, leading to wrong averages.
- Forgetting to account for the possibility of a tie in averages, although the function naturally handles this by selecting the first occurrence.

I-mplement

def find_trending_meme(memes, start_day, end_day):
    max_average = -1
    trending_meme = None

    for meme in memes:
        reposts = meme["reposts"][start_day:end_day + 1]
        average_reposts = sum(reposts) / len(reposts)

        if average_reposts > max_average:
            max_average = average_reposts
            trending_meme = meme["name"]

    return trending_meme