Given two different strings, find the common characters between the two. For example if string A is "hello" and string B is "elbow" the common characters would be ['e', 'l', 'o']. Give a method that returns unique or duplicate entries.

Question

Sam · Accepted Answer

Using python sets, create the two sets of characters, then return the intersection.  This will return the set of characters that are in both strings.

from sets import Set

def duplicateChars(s1, s2):
    s1set = set()
    s2set = set()
    for c in s1:
        s1set.add(c)
    for c in s2:
        s2set.add(c)

    return s1set.intersection(s2set)
    

print duplicateChars("string", "ring")

Chase · Answer

Solution in Java:

public class StringIntersection {
    String str1 = "hello";
    String str2 = "elbow";

    public Set findIntersection() {
        String[] arr1 = str1.split("");
        String[] arr2 = str2.split("");

        List list = Arrays.asList(arr1);

        Set set = new LinkedHashSet(Arrays.asList(arr1));
        set.retainAll(Arrays.asList(arr2));

        set.remove("");

        return set; // returns [e, l, o]
    }
}

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