81 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
81 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Trie"
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date: 2024-06-30T11:07:49+01:00
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draft: false # I don't care for draft mode, git has branches for that
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description: "A cool map"
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tags:
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- algorithms
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- data structures
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- python
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categories:
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- programming
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series:
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- Cool algorithms
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favorite: false
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disable_feed: false
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---
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This time, let's talk about the [_Trie_][wiki], which is a tree-based mapping
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structure most often used for string keys.
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[wiki]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trie
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<!--more-->
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## What does it do?
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A _Trie_ can be used to map a set of string keys to their corresponding values,
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without the need for a hash function. This also means you won't suffer from hash
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collisions, though the tree-based structure will probably translate to slower
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performance than a good hash table.
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A _Trie_ is especially useful to represent a dictionary of words in the case of
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spell correction, as it can easily be used to fuzzy match words under a given
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edit distance (think [Levenshtein distance])
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[Levenshtein distance]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenshtein_distance
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## Implementation
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This implementation will be in Python for exposition purposes, even though
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it already has a built-in `dict`.
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### Representation
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Creating a new `Trie` is easy: the root node starts off empty and without any
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mapped values.
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```python
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class Trie[T]:
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_children: dict[str, Trie[T]]
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_value: T | None
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def __init__(self):
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# Each letter is mapped to a Trie
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self._children = defaultdict(Trie)
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# If we match a full string, we store the mapped value
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self._value = None
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```
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We're using a `defaultdict` for the children for ease of implementation in this
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post. In reality, I would encourage you exit early when you can't match a given
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character.
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The string key will be implicit by the position of a node in the tree: the empty
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string at the root, one-character strings as its direct children, etc...
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### Search
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An exact match look-up is easily done: we go down the tree until we've exhausted
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the key. At that point we've either found a mapped value or not.
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```python
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def get(self, key: str) -> T | None:
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# Have we matched the full key?
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if not key:
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# Store the `T` if mapped, `None` otherwise
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return self._value
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# Otherwise, recurse on the child corresponding to the first letter
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return self._children[key[0]].get(key[1:])
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```
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