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Ruairí O'Brien
Ruairí O'Brien

Posted on • Edited on

Day 8 - Check If Two String Arrays are Equivalent

#leetcode #python

The Problem

Given two string arrays word1 and word2, return true if the two arrays represent the same string, and false otherwise.

A string is represented by an array if the array elements concatenated in order forms the string.

Example 1:

Input: word1 = ["ab", "c"], word2 = ["a", "bc"]
Output: true
Explanation:
word1 represents string "ab" + "c" -> "abc"
word2 represents string "a" + "bc" -> "abc"
The strings are the same, so return true.
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Example 2:

Input: word1 = ["a", "cb"], word2 = ["ab", "c"]
Output: false
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Example 3:

Input: word1  = ["abc", "d", "defg"], word2 = ["abcddefg"]
Output: true
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Constraints:

  • 1 <= word1.length, word2.length <= 10^3
  • 1 <= word1[i].length, word2[i].length <= 10^3
  • 1 <= sum(word1[i].length), sum(word2[i].length) <= 10^3
  • word1[i] and word2[i] consist of lowercase letters.

My Tests

Link to code

import pytest
from .Day8 import Solution

s = Solution()


@pytest.mark.parametrize(
    "word1,word2,expected",
    [
        (["ab", "c"], ["a", "bc"], True),
        (["a", "cb"], ["ab", "c"], False),
        (["abc", "d", "defg"], ["abcddefg"], True),        
    ],
)
def test_array_strings_are_equal(word1, word2, expected):
    assert s.arrayStringsAreEqual(word1, word2) == expected
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My Solution 

from typing import List


class Solution:
    def arrayStringsAreEqual(self, word1: List[str], word2: List[str]) -> bool:
        return "".join(map(str, word1)) == "".join(map(str, word2))
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Analysis

Alt Text

Alt Text

My Commentary

Not much to say about this one really. It's running in O(n). Not sure how to squeeze much more out of it.

We convert each list to a single string and compare them.

Top comments (2)

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mhmelshaaer profile image
Mouhammed Elshaaer • • Edited

You can optimize for memory and a much better time complexity for best-case scenarios.

bool arrayStringsAreEqual(vector<string>& word1, vector<string>& word2) {
    int w1Index=0, i=0, w1N = word1.size(),
        w2Index=0, j=0, w2N = word2.size();

    while(w1Index < w1N && w2Index < w2N) {
        if (word1[w1Index][i] != word2[w2Index][j]) return false;

        if(word1[w1Index].length() - 1 > i) ++i;
        else {
            ++w1Index;
            i = 0;
        }

        if(word2[w2Index].length() - 1 > j) ++j;
        else {
            ++w2Index;
            j = 0;
        }
    }

    return w1Index + w2Index == w1N + w2N;
}
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ruarfff profile image
Ruairí O'Brien •

That's cool. Thank you!

I did a python version of it to test it out:

def arrayStringsAreEqual(self, word1: List[str], word2: List[str]) -> bool:
        w1, i, w1n = 0, 0, len(word1)
        w2, j, w2n = 0, 0, len(word2)

        while w1 < w1n and w2 < w2n:
            if word1[w1][i] != word2[w2][j]:
                return False
            if len(word1[w1]) - 1 > i:
                i += 1
            else:
                w1 += 1
                i = 0

            if len(word2[w2]) - 1 > j:
                j += 1
            else:
                w2 += 1
                j = 0
        return w1 + w2 == w1n + w2n
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