PIQ26: Longest Palindromic Substring

Problem Statement

Given a string S, find the longest palindromic substring of S.

def longest_palindromic_substring(s):
    if not s:
        return None

    n = len(s)
    lps, lps_len = s[0], 1


    dp = [[0 for i in xrange(n)] for j in xrange(n)]

    for i in xrange(n):
        dp[i][i] = 1

    for i in xrange(n - 1):
        if s[i] == s[i + 1]:
            dp[i][i + 1] = 2
        if dp[i][i + 1] > lps_len:
            lps = s[i : i + 2]
            lps_len = dp[i][i + 1]

    for length in xrange(3, n + 1):
        for start in xrange(n - length + 1):
            end = start + length - 1
            if s[start] == s[end] and dp[start + 1][end - 1]:
                lps = s[start : start + length]
                lps_len = length
                dp[start][end] = length

    return lps

Analysis: $O(n^2)$ time complexity, $O(n^2)$ space complexity.