Need help optimizing a program that finds all possible substrings - c++

Question

I have to find all possible, unique substrings from a bunch of user-input strings. This group of substrings has to be alphabetically sorted without any duplicate elements, and the group must be queryable by number. Here's some example input and output:
Input:
3 // This is the user's desired number of strings
abc // So the user inputs 3 strings
abd
def
2 // This is the user's desired number of queries
7 // So the user inputs 2 queries
2
Output:
// From the alphabetically sorted group of unique substrings,
bd // This is the 7th substring
ab // And this is the 2nd substring
Here's my implementation:
#include <map>
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main() {
int number_of_strings;
int number_of_queries;
int counter;
string current_string;
string current_substr;
map<string, string> substrings;
map<int, string> numbered_substrings;
int i;
int j;
int k;
// input step
cin >> number_of_strings;
string strings[number_of_strings];
for (i = 0; i < number_of_strings; ++i)
cin >> strings[i];
cin >> number_of_queries;
int queries[number_of_queries];
for (i = 0; i < number_of_queries; ++i)
cin >> queries[i];
// for each string in 'strings', I want to insert every possible
// substring from that string into my 'substrings' map.
for (i = 0; i < number_of_strings; ++i) {
current_string = strings[i];
for (j = 1; j <= current_string.length(); ++j) {
for (k = 0; k <= current_string.length()-j; ++k) {
current_substr = current_string.substr(k, j);
substrings[current_substr] = current_substr;
}
}
}
// my 'substrings' container is now sorted alphabetically and does
// not contain duplicate elements, because the container is a map.
// but I want to make the map queryable by number, so I'm iterating
// through 'substrings' and assigning each value to an int key.
counter = 1;
for (map<string,string>::iterator it = substrings.begin();
it != substrings.end(); ++it) {
numbered_substrings[counter] = it->second;
++counter;
}
// output step
for (i = 0; i < number_of_queries; ++i) {
if (queries[i] > 0 && queries[i] <= numbered_substrings.size()) {
cout << numbered_substrings[queries[i]] << endl;
} else {
cout << "INVALID" << endl;
}
}
return 0;
}
I need to optimize my algorithm, but I'm not sure how to do it. Maybe it's the fact that I have a second for loop for assigning new int keys to each substring. Help?

Answer 1

Check out Suffix tree. It usually runs in O(n) time:
This article was helpful for me:
http://allisons.org/ll/AlgDS/Tree/Suffix/

Answer 2

Minor notes:
1. include <string>
2. careful with those } else {; one day you'll have a lot of else if branches
and a lot of lines and you'll wonder where an if starts and where it ends
3. careful with unsigned versus signed mismatching... again, one day it will
come back and bite (also, it's nice to compile without errors or warnings)
4. don't try to define static arrays with a variable size
5. nice with ++ i. not many know it has a slight performance boost
(maybe not noticeable with today's processors but still)
While I do agree that using proper algorithms when needed (say bubble sort, heap sort etc. for sorting, binary search, binary trees etc. for searching), sometimes I find it nice to do an optimization on current code. Imagine having a big project and implementing something requires rewrites... not many are willing to wait for you (not to mention the required unit testing, fat testing and maybe fit testing). At least my opinion. [and yes, I know some are gonna say that if it is so complicated then it was written badly from the start - but hey, you can't argue with programmers that left before you joined the team :P]
But I do agree, using existing stuff is a good alternative when called for. But back to the point. I tested it with
3, abc, def, ghi
4, 1, 3, 7, 12
I can't say whether yours is any slower than mine or vice-versa; perhaps a random string generator that adds maybe 500 inputs (then calculates all subs) might be a better test, but I am too lazy at 2 in the morning. At most, my way of writing it might help you (at least to me it seems simpler and uses less loops and assignments). Not a fan of vectors, cos of the slight overhead, but I used it to keep up with your requirement of dynamic querying... a static array of a const would be faster, obviously.
Also, while not my style of naming conventions, I decided to use your names so you can follow the code easier.
Anyway, take a look and tell me what you think:
#include <map>
#include <iostream>
#include <string> // you forgot to add this... trust me, it's important :)
#include <vector> // not a fan, but it's not that bad IF you want dynamic buffers
#include <strstream>
using namespace std;
int main ()
{
unsigned int number_of_strings = 0;
// string strings[number_of_strings]; // don't do this... you can't assign static arrays of a variable size
// this just defaults to 0; you're telling the compiler
cin >> number_of_strings;
map <string, string> substrings;
string current_string, current_substr;
unsigned int i, j, k;
for (i = 0; i < number_of_strings; ++ i)
{
cin >> current_string;
substrings[current_string] = current_string;
for (j = 1; j <= current_string.length(); ++ j)
{
for (k = 0; k <= current_string.length() - j; ++ k)
{
current_substr = current_string.substr(k, j);
substrings[current_substr] = current_substr;
}
}
}
vector <string> numbered_substrings;
for (map <string, string>::iterator it = substrings.begin(); it != substrings.end(); ++ it)
numbered_substrings.push_back(it->second);
unsigned int number_of_queries = 0;
unsigned int query = 0;
cin >> number_of_queries;
current_string.clear();
for (i = 0; i < number_of_queries; ++ i)
{
cin >> query;
-- query;
if ((query >= 0) && (query < numbered_substrings.size()))
current_string = current_string + numbered_substrings[query] + '\n';
else
cout << "INVALID: " << query << '\n' << endl;
}
cout << current_string;
return 0;
}