Java: Which practice avoids a common mistake with Trie and Prefix Tree?

Difficulty:

Medium

Questions:

1

Time Limit:

2 minutes

Passing Score:

100%

Question

Which practice avoids a common mistake with Trie and Prefix Tree?

  1. Ignore the Trie and Prefix Tree issue and rely on team discipline instead of APIs or contracts.
  2. Do not choose a trie casually for small datasets when its node overhead outweighs the benefit of prefix sharing.
  3. Silence the Trie and Prefix Tree problem by using raw types, broad catches, or shared mutable state.
  4. Prefer the version of Trie and Prefix Tree that makes behavior less predictable as long as the code compiles.

Hint

Look for the option that protects correctness instead of hiding the problem.

Answer and rationale

Correct answer: B. Do not choose a trie casually for small datasets when its node overhead outweighs the benefit of prefix sharing.

Do not choose a trie casually for small datasets when its node overhead outweighs the benefit of prefix sharing. This is a common failure mode in real Java code and a frequent interview follow-up.

Track: Java