javascript: fastest way finding is a string is in a set of string

Question

I need a fast way to find if a string is in a set of strings.

My set does not change much over time, so putting it in a sorted array and using binary search is an option (as advised here: fastest way to determine if an element is in a sorted array)

But would using a trie be faster considering we are talking about String ? If so, is there a well known and supported implementation I could use ? (found a few one on github, but did not seem supported or broadly used).

I was also reading: Fast way to find if a string is in an array

Any chance this approach could beat using a trie ?

(I do not have the time to try to implement all the approaches and benchmark them.)

Amadan · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-17 08:29:35Z

2

You have JavaScript. If you go with trie, it would be your own implementation in JavaScript, while a hash is pretty much the foundation the whole JavaScript is built on, optimised to hell in the execution environment. I'd just do this:

var STRINGS = {
  "foo": true,
  "bar": true
}

var fooExists = STRINGS.hasOwnProperty("foo");

answered Nov 17, 2014 at 8:29

Amadan

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4 Comments

Vince Over a year ago

maybe this is just the answer I am looking for, just that building a dictionary for such purpose is so counter intuitive ...

Amadan Over a year ago

If it helps you with the "counter-intuitive" bit, Ruby's Set and Java's TreeSet use the exactly same method (having a composed Hash and TreeMap, respectively) ;)

Vince Over a year ago

yes, that actually helps :) Actually that may even explain why there are no broadly used implementation of trie ?

Amadan Over a year ago

I don't know, really. For large databases I imagine native trie will beat a native hash (either in memory or in speed, depending on number of buckets hash is allocated with); but native hash to beat scripted trie. However, without a benchmark it's just speculation.

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