LeetCode 14. Longest Common Prefix

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

If there is no common prefix, return an empty string "".

Example 1:

Input: ["flower","flow","flight"]
Output: "fl"

Example 2:

Input: ["dog","racecar","car"]
Output: ""
Explanation: There is no common prefix among the input strings.

Note:

All given inputs are in lowercase letters a-z.

 

找最长前缀公共子串，比较各字符串首字母，如果首字母不同，截取字符串之后的子串继续比较。

 

substring() 方法返回字符串的子字符串。

public String substring(int beginIndex, int endIndex)

• beginIndex -- 起始索引（包括）, 索引从 0 开始。

• endIndex -- 结束索引（不包括）。

//java
public String longestCommonPrefix(String[] strs) {
    if(strs == null || strs.length == 0)    return "";
    String pre = strs[0];
    int i = 1;
    while(i < strs.length){
        while(strs[i].indexOf(pre) != 0)
            pre = pre.substring(0,pre.length()-1);
        i++;
    }
    return pre;
}