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Find shortest subarray meeting target sum

OracleSoftware Engineer · Onsite
MediumSoftware EngineerOnsiteCoding & Algorithms

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Find shortest subarray meeting target sum evaluates algorithm design, data structures, correctness, complexity, edge cases, and implementation details in a realistic interview setting. A strong answer states assumptions, handles edge cases, explains trade-offs, and shows how to validate the result clearly.

Given an integer array nums (values may be negative) and an integer T, return the length of the shortest non-empty contiguous subarray whose sum is at least T; return -1 if no such subarray exists. Optimize for n up to 200,000. Explain your approach, prove its correctness, analyze time and space complexity, and implement an O(n) solution.