Midnight Vendor Queue Order
The midnight market coordinator records every vendor sign-up as zone|vendor|HH:MM. By dawn, the sheet looks frantic, and they need a helper routine to sort this jumbled log into the precise order crews will greet vendors. Your mission in Midnight Vendor Queue Order is to produce a re-ordered list without mutating the original badge records.
The "secret sauce" here is Multi-Level Sorting. You first sort by the HH:MM time in 24-hour format. If two vendors arrived at the same time, you compare the zone alphabetically. If the zone also matches, you compare the vendor name case-insensitively while preserving the original badge text. Every entry must keep its punctuation and casing exactly as recorded. This ensures the concierge can align the line with the published vendor reel perfectly. It’s a practical exercise in custom sorting rules and data integrity for real-world event logistics!
If sorting is part of the strategy, do it intentionally as a preprocessing step to simplify downstream logic such as merging, ordering, or comparison. After sorting, keep output semantics precise: preserve expected structure, avoid dropping valid entries, and ensure tied cases still follow deterministic order rules.
Examples
Time controls first, zones tie next, and vendor names compare case-insensitively while keeping their original lettering.
The earliest gate time appears first; ties at 19:10 favor the northern zone over south, then vendor names.
Night Ivy leads because of an earlier time, while the two 20:15 entries sort by zone.
Algorithm Flow
Best Answers
import java.util.*;
class Solution {
public int[] sort_queue(int[] nums) {
int[] res = nums.clone();
Arrays.sort(res);
return res;
}
}Comments (0)
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