Write a function to find the longest common prefix string amongst an array of strings.

“abcdefg”
“abcdefghijk”
“abcdfghijk”
“abcef”

上面的字符串数组的最长公共前缀就是”abc”。

class Solution {
public:
    string longestCommonPrefix(vector<string>& strs) {
        if(strs.size() <= 0)
            return "";
        sort(strs.begin(),strs.end());
        string a = strs[0];
        string b = strs[strs.size()-1];
        string res;
        for(int i = 0;i < a.length();++i)
        {
            if(a[i] == b[i])
                res = res + a[i];
            else
                break;
        }
        return res;
    }
};

算法1:逐个字符比较,时间复杂度为O(N*L),N是字符串个数,L是最长前缀的长度

class Solution {
public:
    string longestCommonPrefix(vector<string> &strs) {
        int n = strs.size();
        string res;
        if(n == 0)return res;
        for(int pos = 0; pos < strs[0].size(); pos++)//最长前缀的长度不超过strs[0].size(),逐个字符的比较
        {
            for(int k = 1; k < n; k++)//strs[0]的第pos个字符分别和strs[1...n-1]的第pos个字符比较
            {
                if(strs[k].size() == pos || strs[k][pos] != strs[0][pos])
                    return res;
            }
            res.push_back(strs[0][pos]);
        }
        return res;
    }
};
class Solution {
public:
    string longestCommonPrefix(vector<string>& strs) {
        if (strs.empty()) return "";
        string res = "";
        for (int j = 0; j < strs[0].size(); ++j) {
            char c = strs[0][j];
            for (int i = 1; i < strs.size(); ++i) {
                if (j >= strs[i].size() || strs[i][j] != c) {
                    return res;
                }
            }
            res.push_back(c);
        }
        return res;
    }
};

我们可以对上面的方法进行适当精简,如果我们发现当前某个字符和下一行对应位置的字符不相等,说明不会再有更长的共同前缀了,我们直接通过用substr的方法直接取出共同前缀的子字符串。如果遍历结束前没有返回结果的话,说明第一个单词就是公共前缀,返回为结果即可。代码如下:

class Solution {
public:
    string longestCommonPrefix(vector<string>& strs) {
        if (strs.empty()) return "";
        for (int j = 0; j < strs[0].size(); ++j) {
            for (int i = 0; i < strs.size() - 1; ++i) {
                if (j >= strs[i].size() || j >= strs[i + 1].size() || strs[i][j] != strs[i + 1][j]) {
                    return strs[i].substr(0, j);
                }
            }
        }
        return strs[0];
    }
};