Longest Common Prefix using Word by Word Matching

Given a set of strings, find the longest common prefix.
Examples:

Input  : {“geeksforgeeks”, “geeks”, “geek”, “geezer”}
Output : "gee"

Input  : {"apple", "ape", "april"}
Output : "ap"

Recommended: Please solve it on “PRACTICE ” first, before moving on to the solution.

We start with an example. Suppose there are two strings- “geeksforgeeks” and “geeks”. What is the longest common prefix in both of them? It is “geeks”.

Now let us introduce another word “geek”. So now what is the longest common prefix in these three words ? It is “geek”

We can see that the longest common prefix holds the associative property, i.e-

LCP(string1, string2, string3) 
         = LCP (LCP (string1, string2), string3)

Like here

LCP (“geeksforgeeks”, “geeks”, “geek”)
     =  LCP (LCP (“geeksforgeeks”, “geeks”), “geek”)
     =  LCP (“geeks”, “geek”) = “geek”

So we can make use of the above associative property to find the LCP of the given strings. We one by one calculate the LCP of each of the given string with the LCP so far. The final result will be our longest common prefix of all the strings.

Note that it is possible that the given strings have no common prefix. This happens when the first character of all the strings are not same.

We show the algorithm with the input strings- “geeksforgeeks”, “geeks”, “geek”, “geezer” by the below figure.

Below is the implementation of above approach:

C++

//  A C++ Program to find the longest common prefix 
#include<bits/stdc++.h> 
using namespace std; 
  
// A Utility Function to find the common prefix between 
// strings- str1 and str2 
string commonPrefixUtil(string str1, string str2) 
{ 
    string result; 
    int n1 = str1.length(), n2 = str2.length(); 
  
    // Compare str1 and str2 
    for (int i=0, j=0; i<=n1-1&&j<=n2-1; i++,j++) 
    { 
        if (str1[i] != str2[j]) 
            break; 
        result.push_back(str1[i]); 
    } 
  
    return (result); 
} 
  
// A Function that returns the longest common prefix 
// from the array of strings 
string commonPrefix (string arr[], int n) 
{ 
    string prefix =  arr[0]; 
  
    for (int i=1; i<=n-1; i++) 
        prefix = commonPrefixUtil(prefix, arr[i]); 
  
    return (prefix); 
} 
  
// Driver program to test above function 
int main() 
{ 
    string arr[] = {"geeksforgeeks", "geeks", 
                    "geek", "geezer"}; 
    int n = sizeof(arr) / sizeof(arr[0]); 
  
    string ans = commonPrefix(arr, n); 
  
    if (ans.length()) 
        printf ("The longest common prefix is - %s", 
                 ans.c_str()); 
    else
        printf("There is no common prefix"); 
  
    return (0); 
} 

Java

// Java Program to find the longest common prefix  
  
class GFG { 
  
// A Utility Function to find the common prefix between  
// strings- str1 and str2  
    static String commonPrefixUtil(String str1, String str2) { 
        String result = ""; 
        int n1 = str1.length(), n2 = str2.length(); 
  
        // Compare str1 and str2  
        for (int i = 0, j = 0; i <= n1 - 1 && j <= n2 - 1; i++, j++) { 
            if (str1.charAt(i) != str2.charAt(j)) { 
                break; 
            } 
            result += str1.charAt(i); 
        } 
  
        return (result); 
    } 
  
// A Function that returns the longest common prefix  
// from the array of strings  
    static String commonPrefix(String arr[], int n) { 
        String prefix = arr[0]; 
  
        for (int i = 1; i <= n - 1; i++) { 
            prefix = commonPrefixUtil(prefix, arr[i]); 
        } 
  
        return (prefix); 
    } 
  
// Driver program to test above function  
    public static void main(String[] args) { 
        String arr[] = {"geeksforgeeks", "geeks", 
            "geek", "geezer"}; 
        int n = arr.length; 
  
        String ans = commonPrefix(arr, n); 
  
        if (ans.length() > 0) { 
            System.out.printf("The longest common prefix is - %s", 
                    ans); 
        } else { 
            System.out.printf("There is no common prefix"); 
        } 
    } 
} 
// This code is contributed by 29AjayKumar 

Python3

# A python3 Program to find the longest  
# common prefix 
  
# A Utility Function to find the common  
# prefix between strings- str1 and str2 
def commonPrefixUtil(str1, str2): 
  
    result = ""; 
    n1 = len(str1) 
    n2 = len(str2) 
  
    # Compare str1 and str2 
    i = 0
    j = 0
    while i <= n1 - 1 and j <= n2 - 1: 
      
        if (str1[i] != str2[j]): 
            break
              
        result += str1[i] 
        i += 1
        j += 1
  
    return (result) 
  
# A Function that returns the longest  
# common prefix from the array of strings 
def commonPrefix (arr, n): 
  
    prefix = arr[0] 
  
    for i in range (1, n): 
        prefix = commonPrefixUtil(prefix, arr[i]) 
  
    return (prefix) 
  
# Driver Code 
if __name__ =="__main__": 
  
    arr = ["geeksforgeeks", "geeks", 
                    "geek", "geezer"] 
    n = len(arr) 
  
    ans = commonPrefix(arr, n) 
  
    if (len(ans)): 
        print ("The longest common prefix is -", 
                ans); 
    else: 
        print("There is no common prefix") 
  
# This code is contributed by ita_c 

C#

// C# Program to find the longest 
// common prefix  
using System; 
  
class GFG 
{ 
  
// A Utility Function to find  
// the common prefix between  
// strings- str1 and str2  
static String commonPrefixUtil(String str1,  
                               String str2)  
{ 
    String result = ""; 
    int n1 = str1.Length,  
        n2 = str2.Length; 
  
    // Compare str1 and str2  
    for (int i = 0, j = 0;  
             i <= n1 - 1 && j <= n2 - 1; 
             i++, j++)  
    { 
        if (str1[i] != str2[j])  
        { 
            break; 
        } 
        result += str1[i]; 
    } 
  
    return (result); 
} 
  
// A Function that returns the longest  
// common prefix from the array of strings  
static String commonPrefix(String []arr, int n) 
{ 
    String prefix = arr[0]; 
  
    for (int i = 1; i <= n - 1; i++)  
    { 
        prefix = commonPrefixUtil(prefix,  
                     arr.GetValue(i).ToString()); 
    } 
  
    return (prefix); 
} 
  
// Driver Code 
public static void Main()  
{ 
    String []arr = {"geeksforgeeks", "geeks", 
                    "geek", "geezer"}; 
    int n = arr.Length; 
  
    String ans = commonPrefix(arr, n); 
  
    if (ans.Length > 0)  
    { 
        Console.Write("The longest common " +  
                       "prefix is - " + ans); 
    }  
    else
    { 
        Console.Write("There is no common prefix"); 
    } 
} 
} 
  
// This code is contributed 
// by 29AjayKumar 

Output :

The longest common prefix is - gee

Time Complexity : Since we are iterating through all the strings and for each string we are iterating though each characters, so we can say that the time complexity is O(N M) where,

N = Number of strings
M = Length of the largest string string

Auxiliary Space : To store the longest prefix string we are allocating space which is O(M).

How to improve this ?
Please see Longest Common Prefix | Set 2 (Character by Character Matching)

This article is contributed by Rachit Belwariar. If you like GeeksforGeeks and would like to contribute, you can also write an article and mail your article to contribute@geeksforgeeks.org. See your article appearing on the GeeksforGeeks main page and help other Geeks.

Please write comments if you find anything incorrect, or you want to share more information about the topic discussed above

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My Personal Notes

Recommended: Please solve it on “PRACTICE ” first, before moving on to the solution.

C++

Java

Python3

C#

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