Solution: Find the Difference
Understand how to efficiently find the index of an extra character present in one of two similar strings using bitwise XOR operations. This lesson guides you through a step-by-step solution that leverages XOR properties to cancel out common characters and isolate the unique one, improving both time and space complexity in your code.
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