Solution: Find the Difference
Understand how to find the index of an extra character present in only one of two given strings. This lesson teaches you to apply bitwise XOR manipulation to simplify the problem, resulting in an efficient algorithm that runs in linear time and uses constant space. You'll learn the step-by-step logic behind the approach and how to implement it to handle strings with an extra character.
Statement
Given two strings, str1 and str2, find the index of the extra character that is present in only one of the strings.
Note: If multiple instances of the extra character exist, return the index of the first occurrence of the character in the longer string.
Constraints:
-
str1.length,str2.length - Either
str2.lengthstr1.length + 1, or,str1.length