All Patterns

Intervals

Sort and merge overlapping or adjacent intervals to solve scheduling, coverage, and overlap problems.

When to use

  • Merge overlapping ranges
  • Find conflicts/overlaps
  • Insert into sorted intervals
  • Meeting room scheduling

When NOT to use

  • Point data (not ranges)
  • No ordering relationship

Common traps

  • Not sorting by start time first
  • Edge cases: touching but not overlapping
  • Forgetting to handle the last interval

Key Invariant

Sort by start time, then greedily merge/compare adjacent intervals

Problems (5)

#293Meeting Rooms
easy
#160Insert Interval
medium
#294Minimum Number of Platforms
medium
#295Car Pooling
medium
#296My Calendar I
medium