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Problem Clarification:

1. Input: We are given a list of strings.
2. Output: We need to find all strings in the list which are a substring of another string in the same list.

Strategy:

1. Initialization: Create an empty list to store the results.
2. Nested Iteration: Use two nested loops to compare each string with every other string:
   • Outer loop: Iterate over each string.
   • Inner loop: For each string in the outer loop, iterate over the other strings.
3. Check Substring: For a given pair of strings from the outer and inner loops, check if the current string from the outer loop is a substring of the current string from the inner loop.
   • If it is, add the outer loop string to the results list and break out of the inner loop to avoid redundant checks.
4. Results: Return the list of strings that are substrings of some other strings in the array.

Code:

Here is the Python code to solve the problem:

def stringMatching(words):
    result = []
    for i in range(len(words)):
        for j in range(len(words)):
            if i != j and words[i] in words[j]:
                result.append(words[i])
                break
    return result

Time Complexity:

• Nested Loops: The solution uses two nested loops where each string is compared with every other string.
• In the worst case, for each string, we check it against all other strings. This gives a time complexity of (O(n^2 * k)), where (n) is the number of strings and (k) is the average length of the strings (since substring operation can be expensive).

While this solution is straightforward, it is not the most efficient due to the nested loops. However, for small lists and practical purposes, it should be sufficient.

Would you like to see a more optimized solution or any additional explanation for this approach?

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