Manacher Longest Palindromic Substring in C++

Algorithms: String Algorithms November 15, 2026 C++

Manacher reuses mirrored palindrome radii to find a longest contiguous palindrome in linear time..

cpp
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#include <stdio.h>
#include <vector>
#include <algorithm>
#include <stdexcept>
#include <cstdint>
#include <limits>
// Manacher Longest Palindromic Substring in C++
//
// PURPOSE
// Manacher reuses mirrored palindrome radii to find a longest contiguous palindrome in
// linear time.
//
// METHOD
// Compute odd and even center radii in separate passes. Reuse the mirror radius within the
// current rightmost palindrome, then expand only beyond its known boundary.
//
// COMPLEXITY
// O(n) time and O(n) auxiliary space.
//
// CONTRACT
// Integer tokens. Returns longest palindrome LENGTH; empty input returns zero.
// Public APIs infer array lengths except in C, which accepts pointer/length pairs. Vertex
// counts and matrix dimensions remain explicit. Arrays must contain signed 32-bit integers.
// Sorted order, correct tree topology, and caller-owned data-structure invariants are
// preconditions; checking them on every query would change query complexity.
// Scalar and shape checks are included. Value-range checks are included where needed to
// prevent invalid indexing or nontermination. Allocation sizes are capped at 4,000,000
// workspace entries. Arithmetic outside Python raises an error on 32-bit overflow; Python
// uses arbitrary precision. Native allocation failures propagate. In-place outputs may be
// partly updated after arithmetic failure. These are single-threaded, in-memory
// implementations.
//
// LANGUAGE DETAILS
// C++17: const vector references for inputs, mutable references for outputs, RAII workspace,
// standard lower_bound for LIS. Invalid inputs throw invalid_argument; overflow throws
// overflow_error; allocation failure propagates bad_alloc.
//
// EXAMPLE
// Expected return: 4.
// Run: g++ -std=c++17 -O2 example.cpp -o example && ./example
// Tests for this exact source artifact run before publication. The accompanying source
// archive includes unit cases, runtime results, and source hashes.

static int alg_min(int a, int b) { return a < b ? a : b; }
static int alg_max(int a, int b) { return a > b ? a : b; }
static void alg_require(bool valid) { if (!valid) throw std::invalid_argument("invalid algorithm input"); }
static int alg_checked(int64_t v) { if (v < INT32_MIN || v > INT32_MAX) throw std::overflow_error("32-bit result overflow"); return (int)v; }
static int alg_add(int a,int b) { return alg_checked((int64_t)a+b); }
static int alg_sub(int a,int b) { return alg_checked((int64_t)a-b); }
static int alg_mul(int a,int b) { return alg_checked((int64_t)a*b); }
static size_t alg_size(int n) { alg_require(n>=0 && n<=4000000); return (size_t)n; }

int manacher(const std::vector<int>& a) {
    alg_require(a.size() <= 1000000);
    int n = (int)a.size();
    alg_require(((n >= 0) && (n <= 1000000)));
    alg_require(((int)a.size() == n));
    std::vector<int> radius(alg_size(alg_add(n, 1)), 0);
    int parity = 0;
    int left = 0;
    int right = alg_sub(0, 1);
    int i = 0;
    int k = 0;
    int best = 0;
    while ((parity < 2)) {
        left = 0;
        right = alg_sub(0, 1);
        i = 0;
        while ((i < n)) {
            k = alg_sub(1, parity);
            if ((i <= right)) {
                k = alg_min(radius[alg_add(alg_sub(alg_add(left, right), i), parity)], alg_add(alg_sub(right, i), 1));
            }
            while (((alg_sub(alg_sub(i, k), parity) >= 0) && (alg_add(i, k) < n) && (a[alg_sub(alg_sub(i, k), parity)] == a[alg_add(i, k)]))) {
                k = alg_add(k, 1);
            }
            radius[i] = k;
            best = alg_max(best, alg_add(alg_sub(alg_mul(2, k), 1), parity));
            if ((alg_sub(alg_add(i, k), 1) > right)) {
                left = alg_add(alg_sub(alg_sub(i, k), parity), 1);
                right = alg_sub(alg_add(i, k), 1);
            }
            i = alg_add(i, 1);
        }
        parity = alg_add(parity, 1);
    }
    return best;
}

int main(void) {
    std::vector<int> a = {1, 2, 2, 1};
    int result = manacher(a);
    printf("%d\n", result);
    return 0;
}