Substring: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:27, 25 November 2022

Latest revision as of 07:25, 30 May 2025

(10 intermediate revisions by 5 users not shown)

Line 1:

{{Short description|Contiguous part of a sequence of symbols}}

{{About|the definition of a substring|the computer function which performs this operation|String functions (programming)}}

{{Distinguish|text=[[subsequence]], a generalization of substring}}

[[File:Substring.png|thumb|"''string''" is a substring of "''substring''"]]

In [[Formal language|formal language theory]] and [[computer science]], a '''substring''' is a contiguous sequence of [[Character (computing)|character]]s within a [[String (computer science)|string]]<!-- Needs a citation. -->.{{Citation needed|date=July 2021}} For instance, "''the best of''" is a substring of "''It was the best of times''". In contrast, "''Itwastimes''" is a subsequence of "''It was the best of times''", but not a substring.

'''Prefixes''' and '''suffixes''' are special cases of substrings. A prefix of a string <math>S</math> is a substring of <math>S</math> that occurs at the beginning of <math>S</math>; likewise, a suffix of a string <math>S</math> is a substring that occurs at the end of <math>S</math>.

The substrings of the string "''apple''" would be:

"''a''", "''ap''", "''app''", "''appl''", "''apple''",

"''p''", "''pp''", "''ppl''", "''pple''",

"''pl''", "''ple''",

Line 80 ⟶ 81:

| title = Algorithms on Strings, Trees and Sequences: Computer Science and Computational Biology

| publisher = Cambridge University Press

| ___location = USAUS

| isbn = 0-521-58519-8

}}</ref>