algoadvance

The problem is defined as follows:

Given two string arrays word1 and word2, return true if the two arrays represent the same string, and false otherwise.

A string array represents a string formed by concatenating its elements in order. For example, if word1 = ["ab", "c"], then it represents the string "abc".

Clarifying Questions

1. Input Constraints:
   • What is the maximum length of word1 and word2?
   • What is the maximum length of each individual string within the arrays?
2. Edge Cases:
   • What should be returned if both arrays are empty?
   • Can the arrays contain empty strings as part of their elements?

Strategy

To solve this problem, follow these steps:

1. Concatenate Elements:
   • Concatenate all the elements of word1 to form a single string str1.
   • Concatenate all the elements of word2 to form a single string str2.
2. Comparison:
   • Compare str1 and str2. If they are equal, return true; otherwise, return false.

Code

Here’s how you can implement this in Python:

def arrayStringsAreEqual(word1, word2):
    # Join all elements of word1 and word2
    str1 = ''.join(word1)
    str2 = ''.join(word2)
    
    # Compare the joined strings
    return str1 == str2

Time Complexity

The time complexity of this solution is determined by the time it takes to concatenate the strings:

• Concatenation:
  • Let n be the total length of all strings in word1.
  • Let m be the total length of all strings in word2.
  • Concatenating all strings in word1 takes O(n) time.
  • Concatenating all strings in word2 takes O(m) time.
• Comparison:
  • Comparing two strings of length n and m in the worst case can take O(min(n, m)).

Therefore, the overall time complexity is O(n + m).

Example

word1 = ["ab", "c"]
word2 = ["a", "bc"]

print(arrayStringsAreEqual(word1, word2))  # Output: True

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