LeetCode 4097: Minimum Value of Merged Integers

Meta Data

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Difficulty: easy First Attempt: 2026-11-02

• Submissions: Wrong Answer → Accepted

Approach

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The pairing is fixed by the problem: nums[0] with nums[1], nums[2] with nums[3], and so on. Concatenate each pair’s decimal digits and take the minimum. Just do that: step i by 2 and compare int(str(nums[i]) + str(nums[i + 1])).

Without strings: if b has d digits, the merge is a * 10^d + b.

My Attempts

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1. Stepped i by 1 and merged every adjacent pair, adding pairs the problem does not have: [70,41,91,11] returned 4191 (41 merged with 91), the answer is 7041.
2. Stepping by 2 passed.

Solution

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class Solution:
    def minMergedInteger(self, nums: List[int]) -> int:
        return min(int(str(nums[i]) + str(nums[i + 1])) for i in range(0, len(nums), 2))

Complexity

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Time O(n) (each number has at most 4 digits), space O(1).

Mistakes to Avoid

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• Read carefully: the pairs are the fixed (0,1), (2,3), …, not every two neighbours.

Interview Explanation

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The pairs are fixed, so I walk the array with step 2, merge each pair into one integer, and take the minimum. Time O(n).