Solution: Find the Difference
Understand how to find the index of the extra character in one of two given strings by leveraging bitwise XOR operations. Learn to implement an optimized algorithm that iterates through both strings once, using constant space and linear time, and apply the technique to similar coding interview problems.
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