AnthropicVerified interview challenge
Aggregate exclusive profiler time
Calculate how much time each function spends executing its own work from a stream of nested call events.
Unlock with Full AccessThe challenge
A single-threaded profiler records when calls start and end. Calls can nest, recur and appear more than once. Recover each function's exclusive execution time without counting the time spent inside its callees, then report the totals in the required order.
- Exclusive time, not total duration
- The result separates a function's own execution from the work performed by functions it calls.
What you'll practise
Nested call state
Reconstruct which function is active as start and end events arrive.
Time accounting
Assign intervals correctly through recursive calls, equal timestamps and idle periods.
Aggregating results
Combine repeated function calls and produce a consistent ranking.
solution.pyPython 3.13
def exclusive_profile_times(
events
):
# Your implementation goes here
passTest cases
Run your code to see results.
Full instructions, starter code and test cases included with Full Access.