Introduction to Solving Miscellaneous Problems Using Tries

Other than pattern matching, auto-searching, and prefix-suffix searching, tries can be helpful data structures for solving multiple other problems.

Other uses of tries

Substrings and subsequences

A substring is a contiguous sequence of characters within a string. For instance, "learn to" is a substring of "I learn to code." In contrast, "I code" is a subsequence of "I learn to code" but not a substring. Tries are inherently designed for string search-related operations. So, eventually, problems related to finding substrings and subsequences can be solved using tries. 

Palindromes and anagrams

A palindrome is a sequence that reads the same forward and backward, such as "noon," whereas an anagram is a sequence formed by rearranging the letters to get another meaningful word, such as the word "brush" formed from the word "shrub." Problems of this sort that involve the rearrangement of the letters can be solved using tries. 

Sorting and prioritization

Sorting and prioritizing data, both alphabetical and numerical, can be achieved using trie traversal and bucketing techniques.

Problem identification

If the problem description contains any of the following properties, it may be solved using tries. 

• Finding and counting the number of substrings or subsequences.

• Finding and counting the number of palindromes.

• Finding and counting the number of anagrams.

• Sorting alphabetical and numerical data.

• Prioritizing and reordering alphabetical and numerical data.