14. Longest Common Prefix

class Solution:
    def longestCommonPrefix(self, strs: List[str]) -> str:
        ans = 0
        
        for i, c in enumerate(strs[0]):
            for s in strs[1:]:
                if i >= len(s) or s[i] != c:
                    return strs[0][:i]
            ans += 1
        return strs[0][:ans]

• we choose a random string in the list, and go through its characters.
  • check if the same letter in the prefix exists in every other string.
  • whenever one check fails, we return the prefix we’ve built up.
• it’s also possible to solve this with a divide-and-conquer approach.

Categories:: string, divide-and-conquer