2703. Return Length of Arguments Passed

Easy

Problem Description

The problem requires the implementation of a function named argumentsLength that takes a variable number of arguments and returns the total count of these arguments. The arguments can be of any type, including numbers, strings, booleans, objects, etc. The main goal is to determine how many arguments are passed into the function when it is called.

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Intuition

The intuition behind the solution comes from understanding what the rest parameters syntax ...args in JavaScript (or TypeScript in this case) is used for. Rest parameters allow us to represent an indefinite number of arguments as an array. This makes it easier to handle a function parameter that can have any number of values.

By using rest parameters, the argumentsLength function can accept any number of arguments, and those arguments are gathered into an array. Then, the length property of the array is used to find out how many items (arguments) it contains. This property directly gives us the count of the arguments supplied to the function, which is the required output.

Therefore, the solution approach is straightforward:

Gather all the arguments passed to the function into an array using the rest parameters syntax (...args).
Return the length of this array using the length property, which represents the count of the arguments.

Solution Approach

The implementation of the argumentsLength function follows a very straightforward algorithm due to the simplicity of the task at hand, which does not require complex data structures or patterns. The steps of the algorithm can be described as follows:

Define the function argumentsLength using the rest parameters syntax represented by the three dots ... before the parameter name args. This allows the function to accept an indefinite number of arguments.
When argumentsLength is called, all arguments passed are automatically placed within the args array.
Use the length property of the array args to determine how many arguments were passed into the function.
Return the value of args.length.

In this case, the "data structure" used is simply an array, but it's provided by the language's syntax for handling functions with a variable number of arguments. There is no need for a manual iteration over arguments or any additional logic to count the arguments, as the array's built-in length property conveniently provides this information.

Here's a step-by-step walkthrough using the provided TypeScript function:

When argumentsLength is invoked, for example, as argumentsLength(1, 2, 3);, the rest parameter ...args collects the arguments into an array: args = [1, 2, 3].
The array's length property is accessed using args.length, which in this case evaluates to 3.
The function then returns this value, which represents the count of arguments passed.

Since the reference solution approach section is empty, the walkthrough provided here is derived from the intuitive understanding of the rest parameters and the length property found on all arrays in JavaScript and TypeScript.

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Example Walkthrough

Let's consider a simple use case to understand the argumentsLength function implementation. Imagine we want to call the argumentsLength function with three different types of arguments: a number, a string, and a boolean. Here's how the function call might appear:

let argCount = argumentsLength(10, "LeetCode", true);

Now let's walk through the steps that the argumentsLength function would take:

Once the function is called, rest parameters syntax ...args captures all supplied arguments into an array. For this example, inside the function, args becomes [10, "LeetCode", true].
Next, the function calculates the number of the elements in the array args by accessing its length property. For our array, args.length would evaluate to 3 since there are three items in the array.
Finally, the function returns the value of args.length, which in this instance is 3. This is the total count of the arguments that were passed to the function.

By following the steps above, our variable argCount now holds the value 3, indicating that three arguments were passed to the argumentsLength function. This example demonstrates the functionality of the function using different argument types and shows the simplicity and effectiveness of using the rest parameters syntax and the length property to count the number of function arguments.

Solution Implementation

1# Function to calculate the number of arguments passed in
2def arguments_length(*args):
3    """
4    Returns the count of arguments passed to the function
5  
6    Parameters:
7    *args: A variable-length argument list that captures all the arguments passed
8  
9    Returns:
10    int: The total number of arguments passed
11    """
12    # Return the length of 'args', which is a tuple storing all the arguments
13    return len(args)
14
15# Example usage:
16# result = arguments_length(1, 2, 3) # result is 3 because three arguments were passed
17

1// Class containing the method to calculate the number of arguments passed
2public class ArgumentCounter {
3
4    // Method to calculate the number of arguments passed in using varargs
5    public static int argumentsLength(Object... args) {
6        // Return the length of the 'args' array, which corresponds to the number of arguments
7        return args.length;
8    }
9
10    // Example usage:
11    public static void main(String[] args) {
12        // Call the method with three arguments; the result is 3 because three arguments were passed
13        int result = argumentsLength(1, 2, 3);
14        // Output the result to the console
15        System.out.println("Number of arguments passed: " + result);
16    }
17}
18

1#include <cstddef> // for size_t
2
3// Template function to calculate the number of arguments passed in
4template<typename... Args>
5size_t ArgumentsLength(Args... args) {
6    // The size of the parameter pack 'Args' corresponds to the number of arguments
7    return sizeof...(args);
8}
9
10// Example usage:
11// size_t result = ArgumentsLength(1, 2, 3); // result is 3 because three arguments were passed
12int main() {
13    size_t result = ArgumentsLength(1, 2, 3); // Calls the function with three integer arguments
14    // 'result' should be 3 after this call
15    return 0;
16}
17

1// Function to calculate the number of arguments passed in
2function argumentsLength(...args: any[]): number {
3    // Return the length of the 'args' array, which corresponds to the number of arguments
4    return args.length;
5}
6
7// Example usage:
8// const result = argumentsLength(1, 2, 3); // result is 3 because three arguments were passed
9

Time and Space Complexity

The time complexity of the argumentsLength function is O(1) because it simply returns the length of the arguments array without any iterations or additional operations that depend on the number of arguments.

The space complexity of the argumentsLength function is O(n) where "n" represents the number of arguments passed to the function. This is because the space used by the function is directly proportional to the number of arguments, as they are stored in an array internally by the rest parameter "...args".

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