Find a card after drawing
A card game draws a number of cards from the top of a deck. Find which card ends up at a given position in the remaining stack.
- Discard the top draws cards from the deck.
- Return the card at the given position index in what remains.
- If the position does not exist in the remaining deck, return -1.
card_position(deck: list<int>, draws: int, position: int) → int
Where you start
def card_position(deck: list[int], draws: int, position: int) -> int:
Worked examples
| Call | Result |
|---|---|
card_position([10, 20, 30, 40, 50], 2, 1) | 40 |
card_position([1, 2, 3], 0, 0) | 1 |
card_position([1, 2, 3], 3, 0) | -1 |
card_position([5, 6, 7, 8], 3, 0) | 8 |
Hint
The answer lives at index draws + position in the original deck, if that index is in bounds.
Reference solution in Python
def card_position(deck: list[int], draws: int, position: int) -> int:
idx = draws + position
return deck[idx] if idx < len(deck) else -1