algorithm - Java - What is the best way to find first duplicate character in a string

Question

I have written below code for detecting first duplicate character in a string.

public static int detectDuplicate(String source) {
    boolean found = false;
    int index = -1;
    final long start = System.currentTimeMillis();
    final int length = source.length();
    for(int outerIndex = 0; outerIndex < length && !found; outerIndex++) {
        boolean shiftPointer = false;
        for(int innerIndex = outerIndex + 1; innerIndex < length && !shiftPointer; innerIndex++ ) {
            if ( source.charAt(outerIndex) == source.charAt(innerIndex)) {
                found = true;
                index = outerIndex;
            } else {
                shiftPointer = true;
            }
        }
    }
    System.out.println("Time taken --> " + (System.currentTimeMillis() - start) + " ms. for string of length --> " + source.length());
    return index;
}

I need help on two things:

• What is the worst case complexity of this algorithm? - my understanding is O(n).
• Is it the best way to do this? Can somebody provide a better solution (if any)?

Thanks, NN

Answer 1

As mentioned by others, your algorithm is O(n^2). Here is an O(N) algorithm, because HashSet#add runs in constant time ( the hash function disperses the elements properly among the buckets) - Note that I originally size the hashset to the maximum size to avoid resizing/rehashing:

public static int findDuplicate(String s) {
    char[] chars = s.toCharArray();
    Set<Character> uniqueChars = new HashSet<Character> (chars.length, 1);
    for (int i = 0; i < chars.length; i++) {
        if (!uniqueChars.add(chars[i])) return i;
    }
    return -1;
}

Note: this returns the index of the first duplicate (i.e. the index of the first character that is a duplicate of a previous character). To return the index of the first appearance of that character, you would need to store the indices in a Map<Character, Integer> (Map#put is also O(1) in this case):

public static int findDuplicate(String s) {
    char[] chars = s.toCharArray();
    Map<Character, Integer> uniqueChars = new HashMap<Character, Integer> (chars.length, 1);
    for (int i = 0; i < chars.length; i++) {
        Integer previousIndex = uniqueChars.put(chars[i], i);
        if (previousIndex != null) {
            return previousIndex;
        }
    }
    return -1;
}