✅ DSA Part 4 – Strings: Patterns, Hashing & Two Pointers 🔤🧩⚡

Strings are everywhere—from passwords to DNA sequences. Mastering string manipulation unlocks powerful algorithms in pattern matching, text processing, and optimization.

1️⃣ What is a String?
A string is a sequence of characters. In most languages, strings are immutable and indexed like arrays.

Python Example:

s = "hello"
print(s[1])  # Output: 'e'

C++ Example:

string s = "hello";
cout << s[1];  // Output: 'e'

Java Example:

String s = "hello";
System.out.println(s.charAt(1));  // Output: 'e'

2️⃣ Common String Operations:
• Concatenation
• Substring
• Comparison
• Reversal
• Search
• Replace

Python – Reversal:

s = "hello"
print(s[::-1])  # Output: 'olleh'

C++ – Substring:

string s = "hello";
cout << s.substr(1, 3);  // Output: 'ell'

Java – Replace:

String s = "hello";
System.out.println(s.replace("l", "x"));  // Output: 'hexxo'

3️⃣ Pattern Matching – Naive vs Efficient
Naive Approach: Check every substring
Efficient: Use hashing or KMP (Knuth-Morris-Pratt)

Python – Naive Pattern Search:

def search(text, pattern):
    for i in range(len(text) - len(pattern) + 1):
        if text[i:i+len(pattern)] == pattern:
            print(f"Found at index {i}")

search("abracadabra", "abra")  # Output: Found at index 0, 7

4️⃣ Hashing for Fast Lookup
Use hash maps to store character counts, frequencies, or indices.

Python – First Unique Character:

from collections import Counter

def first_unique_char(s):
    count = Counter(s)
    for i, ch in enumerate(s):
        if count[ch] == 1:
            return i
    return -1

print(first_unique_char("leetcode"))  # Output: 0

5️⃣ Two Pointers Technique
Used for problems like palindromes, anagrams, or substring windows.

Python – Valid Palindrome:

def is_palindrome(s):
    s = ''.join(filter(str.isalnum, s)).lower()
    left, right = 0, len(s) - 1
    while left < right:
        if s[left] != s[right]:
            return False
        left += 1
        right -= 1
    return True

print(is_palindrome("A man, a plan, a canal: Panama"))  # Output: True

6️⃣ Practice Tasks:
✅ Implement pattern search (naive)
✅ Find first non-repeating character
✅ Check if a string is a palindrome
✅ Use two pointers to reverse vowels in a string
✅ Try Rabin-Karp or KMP for pattern matching

💬 Double Tap ❤️ for Part-5