CODEWITHSUNDEEP
stringpython-2.7compare
Ivan Castro
Ivan Castro

Reputation: 615

How to compare two string where the order of the elements no matter

I'm looking for some function where I can compare two string with the exception that the order of the elements no matter. E.g.:

'abc' == 'bca'
True

Does python have some built-in function like this?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 5966

Answers (2)

Padraic Cunningham
Padraic Cunningham

Reputation: 180401

6For smaller strings you could call sorted on both strings:

def is_equal(a, b):
    return len(a) == len(b) and sorted(a) == sorted(b)

For sorted(a) == sorted(b) to be True, both strings must be the same length and have the same characters:

Or use a Counter dict to count the frequencies if the string lengths are the same:

 from collections import Counter


def is_equal(a, b):
    return len(a) == len(b) and Counter(a) == Counter(b)

If the strings are different lengths then they cannot be equal, if they are all the chars from a have to be in b and the frequency has to be the same. The solution is O(n) as opposed to O(n log n) calling sorted

Upvotes: 2

Mureinik
Mureinik

Reputation: 311188

Strings in python are iterables that return the characters in the string. Like any iterable, they can be wrapped with sorted. If you compare those wrappers, you'd essentially be comparing whether both strings have the same characters in them, regardless of their original order:

>>> s = 'abc'
>>> t = 'bca'
>>> s == t
False
>>> sorted(s) == sorted(t)
True

Upvotes: 4

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