All combinations of a string with special characters

Question

I have written a function which generates combinations of string by replacing 1 or more characters by the symbol "*".

The code is as follows:

/**
        this following code is responsible to generate all possible combiantions of letters from a 
        word with *
        for eg. word = "fin", 
        wordSet --> {fin, fi*, f**, f*n, **n, ***,*in}

*/
public static void generateCombinations(Set<String> words){

        Set<String> wordSet = new HashSet<>();


        for (String word : words){

            StringBuilder asterisk = new StringBuilder("*");

            while (asterisk.length() != word.length()){

                int startIndex = 0;
                while (startIndex + asterisk.length() < word.length()) {
                    String tempWord = word.substring(0, startIndex)
                            + asterisk.toString()
                            + word.substring(startIndex +  asterisk.length());
                    wordSet.add(tempWord);
                    startIndex ++;
                }
                wordSet.add(word.substring(0, Math.abs(startIndex - asterisk.length()+1 ))+ asterisk.toString() );

                //loop condition incrementor
                asterisk.append("*");
            }
            //all *'s
            wordSet.add(asterisk.toString());
            //no *
            wordSet.add(word);
        }
        //System.out.println(wordSet);

    }

However, I think this is a highly inefficient code as I need to do the same operation for all the words in the given Set of words(Set<String> words).

Is there any faster way to generate the same result? Any improvements in the current function to enhance speed and readability?

Answer 1

Well, you can simply find out where the * can be, e.g.:

___, __*, _**, _*_, **_, ***,*__

and then replace:

fin, fi*, f**, f*n, **n, ***,*in

Code:

public static String[] possibleCombinations(String s) {
    int length = s.length();
    char[][] strings = new char[length * (length + 1) / 2][length];
    for (int i = 0; i < strings.length; i++) {
        strings[i] = s.toCharArray();
    }
    strings[0][0] = '*';
    for (int i = 0, j = 0, counter = 0; i < length; i++, counter += length - i + 1, j = i) {
        for (; j < length; j++) {
            for (int k = j; k < length; k++) {
                strings[counter + k - i][j] = '*';
            }
        }
    }
    String[] result = new String[strings.length + 1];
    result[0] = s;
    for (int i = 0; i < strings.length; i++) {
        result[i + 1] = new String(strings[i]);
    }
    return result;
}

It's fairly fast:

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
*aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
**aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
***aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
...
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa***
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa*a
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa**
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa*
length: 50
Time taken: 1064956 nanoseconds

---

Length: 500
Time taken: 733033361 nanoseconds