The Complete Guide to Solving Question 1: Methods, Code, and Logic

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Writing bulletproof code requires clean type hinting, handling empty collections gracefully, and keeping readability high. Here is the standard optimal implementation in Python 3:

<pre style="background: #f8fafc; border: 1px solid #e2e8f0; padding: 16px; border-radius: 6px; font-size: 14px; overflow-x: auto;">

from typing import List

def two_sum(nums: List[int], target: int) -> List[int]:

"""

Finds two distinct indices in nums whose values sum up to target.

Time Complexity: O(n)

Space Complexity: O(n)

"""

seen = {}

for i, num in enumerate(nums):

complement = target - num

if complement in seen:

return [seen[complement], i]

seen[num] = i

return []

</pre>

In this Python code implementation, enumerate() yields the exact index and value simultaneously, avoiding manual index counter tracking. Hash map insertions and lookups run in O(1) average time, delivering a blazing fast 40, 55 millisecond runtime on standard benchmark platforms.