Print common characters of two Strings in alphabetical order

Given two strings, print all the common characters in lexicographical order. If there are no common letters, print -1. All letters are lower case.
Examples:

Input : 
string1 : geeks
string2 : forgeeks
Output : eegks
Explanation: The letters that are common between 
the two strings are e(2 times), k(1 time) and 
s(1 time).
Hence the lexicographical output is "eegks"

Input : 
string1 : hhhhhello
string2 : gfghhmh
Output : hhh

Recommended: Please try your approach on {IDE} first, before moving on to the solution.

The idea is to use character count arrays.
1) Count occurrences of all characters from ‘a’ to ‘z’ in first and second strings. Store these counts in two arrays a1[] and a2[].
2) Traverse a1[] and a2[] (Note size of both is 26). For every index i, print character ‘a’ + i number of times equal min(a1[i], a2[i]).

Below is implementation of above steps.

C++

// C++ program to print common characters 
// of two Strings in alphabetical order 
#include<bits/stdc++.h> 
using namespace std; 
  
int main() 
{ 
    string s1 = "geeksforgeeks"; 
    string s2 = "practiceforgeeks"; 
      
    // to store the count of  
    // letters in the first string 
    int a1[26] = {0}; 
      
    // to store the count of  
    // letters in the second string 
    int a2[26] = {0}; 
    int i , j; 
    char ch; 
    char ch1 = 'a'; 
    int k = (int)ch1, m; 
      
    // for each letter present, increment the count 
    for(i = 0 ; i < s1.length() ; i++) 
    {  
        a1[(int)s1[i] - k]++; 
    } 
    for(i = 0 ; i < s2.length() ; i++) 
    { 
        a2[(int)s2[i] - k]++; 
    } 
  
    for(i = 0 ; i < 26 ; i++) 
    { 
        // the if condition guarantees that  
        // the element is common, that is,  
        // a1[i] and a2[i] are both non zero 
        // means that the letter has occurred 
        // at least once in both the strings 
        if (a1[i] != 0 and a2[i] != 0) 
        { 
            // print the letter for a number 
            // of times that is the minimum  
            // of its count in s1 and s2 
            for(j = 0 ; j < min(a1[i] , a2[i]) ; j++) 
            { 
                m = k + i; 
                ch = (char)(k + i);  
                cout << ch;  
            } 
        } 
    } 
    return 0; 
}  

Java

// Java program to print common characters 
// of two Strings in alphabetical order 
import java.io.*; 
import java.util.*; 
  
// Function to find similar characters 
public class Simstrings 
{ 
    static final int MAX_CHAR = 26; 
  
    static void printCommon(String s1, String s2) 
    { 
       // two arrays of length 26 to store occurrence 
        // of a letters alphabetically for each string 
        int[] a1 = new int[MAX_CHAR]; 
        int[] a2 = new int[MAX_CHAR]; 
  
        int length1 = s1.length(); 
        int length2 = s2.length(); 
  
        for (int i = 0 ; i < length1 ; i++) 
           a1[s1.charAt(i) - 'a'] += 1; 
  
        for (int i = 0 ; i < length2 ; i++) 
           a2[s2.charAt(i) - 'a'] += 1; 
  
        // If a common index is non-zero, it means 
        // that the letter corresponding to that 
        // index is common to both strings 
        for (int i = 0 ; i < MAX_CHAR ; i++) 
        { 
            if (a1[i] != 0 && a2[i] != 0) 
            { 
                // Find the minimum of the occurrence 
                // of the character in both strings and print 
                // the letter that many number of times 
                for (int j = 0 ; j < Math.min(a1[i], a2[i]) ; j++) 
                    System.out.print(((char)(i + 'a'))); 
            } 
        } 
    } 
  
    // Driver code 
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException 
    { 
        String s1 = "geeksforgeeks", s2 = "practiceforgeeks"; 
        printCommon(s1, s2); 
    } 
} 

Python3

# Python3 program to print common characters 
# of two Strings in alphabetical order 
  
  
# Initializing size of array 
MAX_CHAR=26
  
# Function to find similar characters 
def printCommon( s1, s2): 
    # two arrays of length 26 to store occurrence 
    # of a letters alphabetically for each string 
    a1 = [0 for i in range(MAX_CHAR)] 
    a2 = [0 for i in range(MAX_CHAR)] 
  
    length1 = len(s1) 
    length2 = len(s2) 
  
    for i in range(0,length1): 
        a1[ord(s1[i]) - ord('a')] += 1
  
    for i in range(0,length2): 
        a2[ord(s2[i]) - ord('a')] += 1
  
    # If a common index is non-zero, it means 
    # that the letter corresponding to that 
    # index is common to both strings 
    for i in range(0,MAX_CHAR): 
        if (a1[i] != 0 and a2[i] != 0): 
              
            # Find the minimum of the occurrence 
            # of the character in both strings and print 
            # the letter that many number of times 
            for j in range(0,min(a1[i],a2[i])): 
                ch = chr(ord('a')+i) 
                print (ch, end='') 
              
  
# Driver code 
if __name__=="__main__": 
    s1 = "geeksforgeeks"
    s2 = "practiceforgeeks"
    printCommon(s1, s2); 
  
# This Code is contributed by Abhishek Sharma 

C#

// C# program to print common characters 
// of two Strings in alphabetical order 
  
using System; 
// Function to find similar characters 
public class Simstrings 
{ 
    static int MAX_CHAR = 26; 
   
    static void printCommon(string s1, string s2) 
    { 
       // two arrays of length 26 to store occurrence 
        // of a letters alphabetically for each string 
        int[] a1 = new int[MAX_CHAR]; 
        int[] a2 = new int[MAX_CHAR]; 
   
        int length1 = s1.Length; 
        int length2 = s2.Length; 
   
        for (int i = 0 ; i < length1 ; i++) 
           a1[s1[i] - 'a'] += 1; 
   
        for (int i = 0 ; i < length2 ; i++) 
           a2[s2[i] - 'a'] += 1; 
   
        // If a common index is non-zero, it means 
        // that the letter corresponding to that 
        // index is common to both strings 
        for (int i = 0 ; i < MAX_CHAR ; i++) 
        { 
            if (a1[i] != 0 && a2[i] != 0) 
            { 
                // Find the minimum of the occurrence 
                // of the character in both strings and print 
                // the letter that many number of times 
                for (int j = 0 ; j < Math.Min(a1[i], a2[i]) ; j++) 
                    Console.Write(((char)(i + 'a'))); 
            } 
        } 
    } 
   
    // Driver code 
    public static void Main() 
    { 
        string s1 = "geeksforgeeks", s2 = "practiceforgeeks"; 
        printCommon(s1, s2); 
    } 
} 

Output:

eeefgkors

Time Complexity: If we consider n = length(larger string), then this algorithm runs in O(n) complexity.

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

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My Personal Notes

Recommended: Please try your approach on {IDE} first, before moving on to the solution.

C++

Java

Python3

C#

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