In this mini-project we are going to build a code base search engine with suffix trees, nodejs express framework, and either backbonejs or angularjs for your mvc framework; if you prefer to not use a frontend mvc, that's fine too.

When you've finished, you'll be able to run: node server.js some/directory/to/index/in/a/suffix/tree to load a code base into a suffix tree.

You'll then be able to search your tree with: http://localhost:3000/search/substring_in_the_codebase

Basically:

• Why suffix trees exist
• What kinds of problems do suffix trees solve
• How do suffix trees work
• How can we use a suffix tree to pull in the files of a code base to be able to search for matches in the code base?

• Suffix Tree wikipedia article
• A really good slide deck about suffix trees
• A video lesson with notes about suffix trees from the MIT Advanced Data Structures Course

• Fork this project under your github account
• Clone to your machine
• Run npm install from the root directory where you cloned This will install the dependencies, which are specified in package.json.
• Run npm install jasmine-node -g This will install jasmine, so you may run the specs in the terminal.

• As usual, start by running the specs in spec/javascripts/suffix_tree_spec.js.

• Some specs will pass, most will fail.

• The specs along with your understanding of suffix trees and the problem you are solving, will help you through the solution.

The key is to understand the problem and how suffix trees solve it, before writing a single line of code. Make sure to draw diagrams of the state changes as a suffix tree gets filled with suffixes. Understand the differences in how new suffixes are added to the suffix tree in various cases. Really, one more time, draw the state changes.