015 Longest Common Prefix.py

"""
Write a function to find the longest common prefix string amongst an array of strings.
Author : Rajeev Ranjan
"""


class Solution(object):
    def longestCommonPrefix(self, strs):
        if not strs: return ""
        l = min(map(len, strs))
        i = 0
        while i < l:
            char = strs[0][i]
            for s in strs:
                if s[i] != char:
                    return strs[0][:i]

            i += 1

        return strs[0][:i]

    def longestCommonPrefixComplex(self, strs):
        """
        O(k*n)
        :param strs: a list of string
        :return: string, prefix
        """
        # checking, otherwise: ValueError: min() arg is an empty sequence
        if not strs:
            return ""

        n = len(strs)

        str_builder = ""
        min_len = min(len(string) for string in strs)
        for i in range(min_len):
            char = strs[0][i]

            j = 0
            while j < n:
                try:
                    if strs[j][i] != char: break
                    j += 1
                except IndexError:
                    break

            if j == n:
                str_builder += char
            else:
                break

        return str_builder


if __name__ == "__main__":
    strs = ["abc", "abcd"]
    print Solution().longestCommonPrefix(strs)