http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=1014030


in reply to searching problem

You mean matching only from the start?

Your sorting technique sounds clever, but the sorting itself isn't constant, I suppose something like O(n*log(n)).

IMHO the fastest solution should be a trie, if it's worth the overhead depends on the number of words to search.

Another simpler approach is abusing the regex engine, because from 5.10 on it has internal trie optimization and is f*ckingly fast!

$str = join "\0",@wordlist, @reverts = map { "\0" . reverse $_ } @wordlist; $pattern = '(' . join('|',@reverts) . ')' ; @matches = ( $str =~ /$pattern/g );

thats untested pseudo-code I hope you get the idea! =)

UPDATE

now tested:

DB<131> @wordlist=qw(mamy dady bara foo bic ymamaa arabic ); => ("mamy", "dady", "bara", "foo", "bic", "ymamaa", "arabic") DB<132> $str = join "\0",@wordlist, => "mamy\0dady\0bara\0foo\0bic\0ymamaa\0arabic" DB<133> $pattern = join '|',map { "\0" . reverse $_ } @wordlist; => "\0ymam|\0ydad|\0arab|\0oof|\0cib|\0aamamy|\0cibara" DB<134> @matches = ( $str =~ /($pattern)/g ); => ("\0ymam", "\0arab")

Cheers Rolf