Code Room
CodingMediumcod-g609
Subject Suffix structuresLevel Mid–Senior~28 minCommon in Algorithms & data structures interviewsIndustries Software development

Question

Given a string s, return the number of distinct non-empty substrings of s. Two substrings are the same if they are equal as strings (positions don't matter). 1 <= len(s) <= 1000, lowercase letters. Example: 'aba' has substrings a, b, ab, ba, aba = 5 distinct.

Implement
count_distinct_substrings(s: str) → int
Examples
in["aba"]out5
What a strong answer looks like

State your approach and its time/space complexity out loud before you optimize. Handle the edge cases (empty input, duplicates, overflow), and say why you chose this over the brute force. Green tests are the floor, not the grade.

Vibe coding: describe the solution in plain language (or narrate it) and the coach grades your approach. Generating runnable code from your description is coming next.

Run or narrate your approach, then ask the coach.