Solution: Find the Difference
Explore how to find the index of an extra character in one of two strings by applying bitwise XOR operations. Understand why XOR helps isolate the unique character and learn to implement this method efficiently with linear time and constant space.
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