CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby
Stormvirux
Stormvirux

Reputation: 909

Check the characters inside two strings are the same in Ruby

I have two strings, a and b, in Ruby.

a="scar"
b="cars"

What is the easiest way in Ruby to find whether a and b contain the same characters?

UPDATE
I am building an Anagram game ,so scar is an anagram of cars.So i want a way to compare a and b and come to conclusion that its an anagram
So c="carcass" should not be a match

Upvotes: 2

Views: 6266

Answers (4)

Arup Rakshit
Arup Rakshit

Reputation: 118271

What is the easiest way in Ruby to find whether a and b contain the same characters?

As per the definitions of Anagram the below written code should work :

a="scar"
b="cars"
a.size == b.size && a.delete(b).empty?

Upvotes: 3

Yevgeniy Anfilofyev
Yevgeniy Anfilofyev

Reputation: 4847

Just for testing arrays vs string vs delete comparation. Assuming we compare strings with equal length.

In the real anagram search you need to sort first word a once. And then compare it to bunch of b's.

a="scar"
b="cars"

require 'benchmark'

n = 1000000
Benchmark.bm do |x|
  x.report('string') { a = a.chars.sort.join; n.times do ; a == b.chars.sort.join ; end }
  x.report('arrays') { a = a.chars.sort; n.times do ; a == b.chars.sort ; end }
end

The result:

          user     system      total        real
string  6.030000   0.010000   6.040000 (  6.061088)
arrays  6.420000   0.010000   6.430000 (  6.473158)

But, if you sort a each time (for delete we don't need to sort any word):

x.report('string') { n.times do ; a.chars.sort.join == b.chars.sort.join ; end }
x.report('arrays') { n.times do ; a.chars.sort == b.chars.sort ; end }
x.report('delete') { n.times do ; a.delete(b).empty? ; end }

The result is:

          user     system      total        real
string 11.800000   0.020000  11.820000 ( 11.989071)
arrays 11.210000   0.020000  11.230000 ( 11.263627)
delete  1.680000   0.000000   1.680000 (  1.673979)

Upvotes: 9

toro2k
toro2k

Reputation: 19228

You could do like this:

a = 'scar'
b = 'cars'
a.chars.sort == b.chars.sort
# => true

a = 'cars'
b = 'carcass'
a.chars.sort == b.chars.sort
# => false

Upvotes: 11

ilan berci
ilan berci

Reputation: 3881

require 'set'
Set.new(a.chars) == Set.new(b.chars)

updated to take into account comment from sawa

Upvotes: 1

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