Minimum indexed character

Problem Statement - link #

Given a string str and another string patt. Find the minimum index of the character in str that is also present in patt.

Your Task: You only need to complete the function minIndexChar() that returns the index of answer in str or returns -1 in case no character of patt is present in str.

Expected Time Complexity: O(N)
Expected Auxiliary Space: O(Number of distinct characters)

Examples #

Example 1:

Input:
str = geeksforgeeks
patt = set
Output: 1
Explanation: e is the character which is
present in given str "geeksforgeeks"
and is also presen in patt "set". Minimum
index of e is 1. 

Example 2:

Input:
str = adcffaet
patt = onkl
Output: -1
Explanation: There are none of the
characters which is common in patt
and str.

Constraints #

• 1 ≤ |str|,|patt| ≤ 10^5
• 'a' <= stri, patti <= 'z'

Solutions #

class Solution{
    public:
    //Function to find the minimum indexed character.
    int minIndexChar(string str, string patt)
    {
        // Your code here
        for(int i=0; i<str.size(); i++)
            if(patt.find(str[i])!=-1) return i;
        return -1;
    }
};