DSA Pattern: Sliding Window
Efficiently solve subarray and substring problems
Pattern Overview
When to Use
- Finding max/min subarray
- Substring with constraints
- Window of fixed size
- Variable size windows
Benefits
- Avoids O(n²) brute force
- O(n) time complexity
- Handles contiguous data
- Flexible window size
Example Problems
Max Sum Subarray of Size K
Fixed window sliding
Longest Substring Without Repeating
Variable window expansion
Minimum Window Substring
Shrink and expand technique
Practice Exercises
Step-by-step solutions, code implementations, and visualization diagrams will be available here soon.