Testing for repeated characters in a string

Question

I\'m doing some work with strings, and I have a scenario where I need to determine if a string (usually a small one < 10 characters) contains repeated characters.

Answer 1

The hash solution Jon was describing is probably the best. You could use a HybridDictionary since that works well with small and large data sets. Where the letter is the key and the value is the frequency. (Update the frequency every time the add fails or the HybridDictionary returns true for .Contains(key))

Answer 2

This will tell you very quickly if a string contains duplicates:

bool containsDups = "ABCDEA".Length != s.Distinct().Count();

It just checks the number of distinct characters against the original length. If they're different, you've got duplicates...

Edit: I guess this doesn't take care of the frequency of dups you noted in your edit though... but some other suggestions here already take care of that, so I won't post the code as I note a number of them already give you a reasonably elegant solution. I particularly like Joe's implementation using LINQ extensions.

Answer 3

If the string is short, then just looping and testing may well be the simplest and most efficient way. I mean you could create a hash set (in whatever platform you're using) and iterate through the characters, failing if the character is already in the set and adding it to the set otherwise - but that's only likely to provide any benefit when the strings are longer.

EDIT: Now that we know it's sorted, mquander's answer is the best one IMO. Here's an implementation:

public static bool IsSortedNoRepeats(string text)
{
    if (text.Length == 0)
    {
        return true;
    }
    char current = text[0];
    for (int i=1; i < text.Length; i++)
    {
        char next = text[i];
        if (next <= current)
        {
            return false;
        }
        current = next;
    }
    return true;
}

A shorter alternative if you don't mind repeating the indexer use:

public static bool IsSortedNoRepeats(string text)
{
    for (int i=1; i < text.Length; i++)
    {
        if (text[i] <= text[i-1])
        {
            return false;
        }
    }
    return true;
}

EDIT: Okay, with the "frequency" side, I'll turn the problem round a bit. I'm still going to assume that the string is sorted, so what we want to know is the length of the longest run. When there are no repeats, the longest run length will be 0 (for an empty string) or 1 (for a non-empty string). Otherwise, it'll be 2 or more.

First a string-specific version:

public static int LongestRun(string text)
{
    if (text.Length == 0)
    {
        return 0;
    }
    char current = text[0];
    int currentRun = 1;
    int bestRun = 0;

    for (int i=1; i < text.Length; i++)
    {
        if (current != text[i])
        {
            bestRun = Math.Max(currentRun, bestRun);
            currentRun = 0;
            current = text[i];
        }
        currentRun++;
    }
    // It's possible that the final run is the best one
    return Math.Max(currentRun, bestRun);
}

Now we can also do this as a general extension method on IEnumerable<T>:

public static int LongestRun(this IEnumerable<T> source)
{
    bool first = true;
    T current = default(T);
    int currentRun = 0;
    int bestRun = 0;

    foreach (T element in source)
    {
        if (first || !EqualityComparer<T>.Default(element, current))
        {
            first = false;
            bestRun = Math.Max(currentRun, bestRun);
            currentRun = 0;
            current = element;
        }
    }
    // It's possible that the final run is the best one
    return Math.Max(currentRun, bestRun);
}

Then you can call "AABCD".LongestRun() for example.

Answer 4

How about something like:

string strString = "AA BRA KA DABRA";

var grp = from c in strString.ToCharArray() 
        group c by c into m
        select new { Key = m.Key, Count = m.Count() };

foreach (var item in grp)
{
    Console.WriteLine(
        string.Format("Character:{0} Appears {1} times", 
        item.Key.ToString(), item.Count));
}

Answer 5

Update Now, you'd need an array of counters to maintain a count.

Keep a bit array, with one bit representing a unique character. Turn the bit on when you encounter a character, and run over the string once. A mapping of the bit array index and the character set is upto you to decide. Break if you see that a particular bit is on already.