p5-fox

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#
# longest common substring
#

my @str1 = $*IN.get.comb;
my @str2 = $*IN.get.comb;

my %table;
my $length = 0;
my $result = '';

for ^@str1 X ^@str2 -> $i, $j {
    if @str1[$i] eq @str2[$j] {
        %table{$i}{$j} = 1 + ( %table{$i-1}{$j-1} // 0);
        if %table{$i}{$j} >= $length {
            $length = %table{$i}{$j};
            $result = [~] @str1[ $i-$length+1 .. $i];
        }
    }
}
say $result;

Readability

A short and sweet solution. It doesn't get more surveyable than this.

Consistency

I can't say I care much for the practice of putting space after the opening paren or bracket, but not before the closing one. A very minor nit, though.

Clarity of intent

Interestingly, this is a case where the names @str1 and @str2 are perfectly acceptable. There's nothing to distinguish the two strings apart from them being first and second.

I think we need a module in Perl 6 to let people do array indexing on strings. People seem to really want it. And it would make this short program a few tokens shorter, even.

Two questions arise about %table: why is it a hash of hashes, when all its indexes are a (non-sparse) rectangle of integers? And why not go for a descriptive name, like length or common-length?

Algorithmic efficiency

The %table variable helps propagate a bit of the information, saving us a third loop. But this algorithm is still pretty slow.

Idiomatic use of Perl 6

How could I fail to mention the X operator in the for loop? A very appropriate use of it, I think.

Brevity

As usual, you can count on fox for making every line of code count.