# Finding the longest common subsequence algorithm using hash table Slow

I've designed an algorithm to find the longest common subsequence. these are steps:

Starts with i = 0

1. Picks the first letter from the first string start from ith letter.
2. Go to the second string looking for that picked letter.
3. If not found return to the first string and picks the next letter and repeat 1 to 3 until it finds a letter that is in the second string.
4. Now that found a common letter in the second string, adds that to $common_subsequence. 5. Store its position in $index.
6. Picks next letter from the first string and do step 2 but this time starts from $index. 7. Repeat 3 to 6 until reached end of string 1 or string 2. 8. If length $common_subsequence is greater than length of common subsequence so far add that change lcs to the $common_subsequence. 9. Add 1 to the i and repeat 1 to 9 while i is less that length of the first string. This is an example: ‫‪ X=A, B, C, B, D, A, B‬‬ ‫‪Y=B, D, C, A, B, A‬‬  1. First pick A. 2. Look for A in Y. 3. Now that found A add that to the $common_subsequence.
4. Then pick B from X.
5. Look for B in Y but this time start searching from A.
6. Now pick C. It isn't there in string 2, so pick the next letter in X that is B.
...
...
...

The complexity of this algorithm is theta(n*m).

I implemented it on the two methods. The second one uses a hash table, but after implementing I found that it's much slower compared to the first algorithm. I cant undrestand why.

Here is my implementation:

First algorithm:

import time
def lcs(xstr, ystr):
if not (xstr and ystr): return # if string is empty
lcs = [''] #  longest common subsequence
lcslen = 0 # length of longest common subsequence so far
for i in xrange(len(xstr)):
cs = '' # common subsequence
start = 0 # start position in ystr
for item in xstr[i:]:
index = ystr.find(item, start) # position at the common letter
if index != -1: # if common letter has found
cs += item # add common letter to the cs
start = index + 1
if index == len(ystr) - 1: break # if reached end of the ystr
# update lcs and lcslen if found better cs
if len(cs) > lcslen: lcs, lcslen = [cs], len(cs)
elif len(cs) == lcslen: lcs.append(cs)
return lcs

file1 = open('/home/saji/file1')
file2 = open('/home/saji/file2')

start = time.time()
lcss = lcs(xstr, ystr)
elapsed = (time.time() - start)
print elapsed


Second one using hash table:

import time
from collections import defaultdict
def lcs(xstr, ystr):
if not (xstr and ystr): return # if strings are empty
lcs = [''] #  longest common subsequence
lcslen = 0 # length of longest common subsequence so far
location = defaultdict(list) # keeps track of items in the ystr
i = 0
for k in ystr:
location[k].append(i)
i += 1
for i in xrange(len(xstr)):
cs = '' # common subsequence
index = -1
reached_index = defaultdict(int)
for item in xstr[i:]:
for new_index in location[item][reached_index[item]:]:
reached_index[item] += 1
if index < new_index:
cs += item # add item to the cs
index = new_index
break
if index == len(ystr) - 1: break # if reached end of the ystr
# update lcs and lcslen if found better cs
if len(cs) > lcslen: lcs, lcslen = [cs], len(cs)
elif len(cs) == lcslen: lcs.append(cs)
return lcs

file1 = open('/home/saji/file1')
file2 = open('/home/saji/file2')

start = time.time()
lcss = lcs(xstr, ystr)
elapsed = (time.time() - start)
print elapsed

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This might be better suited to stackoverflow.com, or better yet, to Code Review. To me, their FAQ seems to allow such questions as on topic. –  Paresh Jan 9 '13 at 16:48
Also, algorithmist.com/index.php/… for an implementation. –  Paresh Jan 9 '13 at 16:51
One optimization is to replace the access to reached_index[item] by a local variable which is initialized from the hash table at the beginning of the for item loop, and stored back to the hash table at the end of the loop.