Coding questions · Codeium

Find the third-largest word by length

This question evaluates proficiency in string and array manipulation, ordering by key metrics (string length), and handling tie-breaking via stable ordering, situated in the Coding & Algorithms domain.

Given an array of strings strArr (length ≥ 3), return the third largest word when ranking words by string length in descending order.

Ranking rules:

Larger length ⇒ larger rank.
If two words have the same length, keep their original left-to-right order from the input (i.e., use a stable sort by length descending).
After ranking, return the word at rank 3 (the 3rd element in this ordering).

Assumptions/constraints:

Each string contains only letters.
The input contains at least 3 strings.

Examples:

Input: ["hello", "world", "before", "all"] → Output: "world"
Input: ["hello", "world", "after", "all"] → Output: "after"
Input: ["coder", "byte", "code"] → Output: "code"
Input: ["abc", "defg", "z", "hijk"] → Output: "abc"

Third Largest Word By Length

Hints

Clarify edge cases before coding.
Keep the return value deterministic.