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Grokking the Coding Interview Patterns in Go

Solution: Find the Difference

Understand how to solve the problem of finding the index of the extra character in one string compared to another by using bitwise XOR manipulation. Explore a time-efficient, constant-space solution that iterates through both strings and isolates the unmatched character. Learn how this method leverages XOR properties to cancel out matching characters and locate the extra character's index in the longer string.

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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:

  • 0≤0 \leq str1.length, str2.length ≤1000\leq 1000
  • Either str2.length == str1.length + 1, or, str1.length ==
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