Program to find same words from 2 strings javascript

Question

I was asked this question in an interview where I failed to answer.

Here's my try:

str1 = "This is string 1";
str2 = "This is string 2";
let similarWords = [];
splittedStr1 = str1.split(" ");
splittedStr2 = str2.split(" ");
console.log(splittedStr1);
console.log(splittedStr2);
for (i = 0; i < splittedStr1.length; i++) {
  for (j = i; j < splittedStr2.length; j++) {
    if (splittedStr1[i] = splittedStr2[j]) {
      similarWords.push(splittedStr1[i]);
    }
  }
}
console.log(similarWords);

This outputs:

[
    "This",
    "is",
    "string",
    "2",
    "is",
    "string",
    "2",
    "string",
    "2",
    "2"
]

I'm wondering what did I miss?

I've shown what I tried above.

Gihan · Accepted Answer · 2023-01-26 09:08:57Z

3

The problem with the code is that in the inner for loop, you are using the assignment operator (=) instead of the comparison operator (== or ===) when checking if splittedStr1[i] is equal to splittedStr2[j].

To do this, you should change the assignment operator to a comparison operator. And then you also need to check if the word is already added in the similarWords array before adding it again.

Try this.

let str1 = "This is string 1";
let str2 = "This is string 2";
let similarWords = [];
let splittedStr1 = str1.split(" ");
let splittedStr2 = str2.split(" ");

for (i = 0; i < splittedStr1.length; i++) {
  for (j = 0; j < splittedStr2.length; j++) {
    if (splittedStr1[i] === splittedStr2[j] && !similarWords.includes(splittedStr1[i])) {
      similarWords.push(splittedStr1[i]);
    }
  }
}
console.log(similarWords);

answered Jan 26, 2023 at 9:08

Gihan

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1 Comment

Gihan Over a year ago

Just to be safe, this check prevents adding the same word multiple times in the array.

Trevor Dixon · Accepted Answer · 2023-01-27 12:35:10Z

1

Maybe they wanted something like this.

const str1 = "This is string 1";
const str2 = "This is string 2";
const words = new Set(str1.split(' ')); // Set(4) {'This', 'is', 'string', '1'}
str2.split(' ') // ['This', 'is', 'string', '2']
  .filter(word => words.has(word)); // Only keep the words from str2 that are also in str1

edited Jan 27, 2023 at 12:35

answered Jan 26, 2023 at 9:12

Trevor Dixon

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2 Comments

dvsd9p7m Over a year ago

i've hard time understanding code that uses es6 concepts even though I'm aware of them...any tips?

Trevor Dixon Over a year ago

Hmm, good question. Just try and wrap your head around filter and map first and look for opportunities to use them. Also, interviewers would love it if you could tell them why you would or wouldn't use Set. The set's word.has looks up in constant O(1) time, whereas array.includes is linear O(n) time. For tiny sets, it really doesn't matter, though the array is probably faster for small enough sets. But as the sets get bigger, Set will scale better. That's the kind of thing an interviewer would be interested to hear you talk about.

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