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208. Implement Trie (Prefix Tree)

Difficulty Topics

Description

A trie (pronounced as "try") or prefix tree is a tree data structure used to efficiently store and retrieve keys in a dataset of strings. There are various applications of this data structure, such as autocomplete and spellchecker.

Implement the Trie class:

  • Trie() Initializes the trie object.
  • void insert(String word) Inserts the string word into the trie.
  • boolean search(String word) Returns true if the string word is in the trie (i.e., was inserted before), and false otherwise.
  • boolean startsWith(String prefix) Returns true if there is a previously inserted string word that has the prefix prefix, and false otherwise.

 

Example 1:

Input
["Trie", "insert", "search", "search", "startsWith", "insert", "search"]
[[], ["apple"], ["apple"], ["app"], ["app"], ["app"], ["app"]]
Output
[null, null, true, false, true, null, true]

Explanation
Trie trie = new Trie();
trie.insert("apple");
trie.search("apple");   // return True
trie.search("app");     // return False
trie.startsWith("app"); // return True
trie.insert("app");
trie.search("app");     // return True

 

Constraints:

  • 1 <= word.length, prefix.length <= 2000
  • word and prefix consist only of lowercase English letters.
  • At most 3 * 104 calls in total will be made to insert, search, and startsWith.

Solution

implement-trie-prefix-tree.py
class TrieNode:

    def __init__(self):
        self.children = defaultdict(TrieNode)
        self.hasEnd = False

class Trie:

    def __init__(self):
        self.root = TrieNode()

    def insert(self, word: str) -> None:
        curr = self.root

        for x in word:
            curr = curr.children[x]

        curr.hasEnd = True

    def search(self, word: str) -> bool:
        curr = self.root

        for x in word:
            if x not in curr.children:
                return False

            curr = curr.children[x]

        return curr.hasEnd

    def startsWith(self, prefix: str) -> bool:
        curr = self.root

        for x in prefix:
            if x not in curr.children:
                return False

            curr = curr.children[x]

        return True


# Your Trie object will be instantiated and called as such:
# obj = Trie()
# obj.insert(word)
# param_2 = obj.search(word)
# param_3 = obj.startsWith(prefix)