Solution: Find the Difference
Understand how to use bitwise XOR manipulation to find the index of an extra character in one of two nearly equal strings. Learn to implement a linear time and constant space solution by leveraging ASCII values and XOR properties for efficient problem solving.
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