Encode and Decode Strings

Design an algorithm to encode a list of strings to a single string. The encoded string is then decoded back to the original list of strings.

You should implement two methods:

class Codec:
    def encode(self, strs: List[str]) -> str:
        # Encodes a list of strings to a single string.
    
    def decode(self, s: str) -> List[str]:
        # Decodes a single string to a list of strings.

Constraints

• strs.length <= 1000
• 0 <= strs[i].length <= 200
• strs[i] contains any possible characters, including '/', digits, and whitespace.
• The encoded string is guaranteed to be decodable.

Example

codec = Codec()
original = ["lint", "code", "love", "you"]
encoded = codec.encode(original)
decoded = codec.decode(encoded)
assert decoded == original

Hint

Avoid using characters like # or / as separators unless you handle escaping properly. A robust way is to prefix each string with its length.