I started confident because 'merge dicts' felt like a one-liner.
Start by clarifying the requirements: iterative merge, later keys override, and recursive merge for nested dicts. Then outline an iterative approach using a stack to handle nested dictionaries, ensuring no recursion. Finally, discuss trade-offs like time/space complexity and edge cases.
Pro tip: Mention that using a stack avoids recursion limits and is more memory-efficient for deep nesting, but be prepared to discuss when recursion might be simpler and acceptable.
Confirm that the merge should be iterative, later keys override, and nested dicts are merged recursively. Ask about input size and depth to inform approach.
Use a stack to simulate recursion: push pairs of dicts to merge, and process them iteratively. For each key, if both values are dicts, push them onto the stack; otherwise, override.
Write the function, handling edge cases like empty lists, non-dict values, and deep nesting. Test with examples to ensure correctness.
Discuss time complexity O(N) where N is total number of key-value pairs, and space complexity O(D) for stack depth D. Compare with recursive approach.
Highlight pros and cons: iterative avoids recursion limit but may be more complex; recursive is simpler but risks stack overflow. Mention potential optimizations.
AI-generated suggestions, not part of the candidate's original notes. May be inaccurate — verify before relying on them.