Solution: Find the Difference
Explore how to find the index of the extra character between two strings by applying bitwise XOR operations. Understand the naive sorting approach and then master an optimized method that leverages XOR properties for efficient character comparison. This lesson guides you through step-by-step problem-solving to achieve a linear time and constant space solution.
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