Find common characters from group of string-CodePudding

Given the set of below strings

vJrwpWtwJgWrhcsFMMfFFhFp
jqHRNqRjqzjGDLGLrsFMfFZSrLrFZsSL
PmmdzqPrVvPwwTWBwg

In above strings only lower case letter "r" is common in all of them.

I know we can use Intersectto find common things in 2 string but how to do using 3 strings?

This code below i did for 2 strings

var commonString = firstPartOfstring
  .Intersect(secondPartOfString)
  .Select(x => x)
  .FirstOrDefault()
  .ToString();

But cant find how to do for 3 strings

CodePudding user response：

In general case you can query the strings (lines) with a help of Linq Aggregate. Please, note, that to get string from enumeration (IEnumerable<char>) we should use Concat(), not ToString():

using System.Linq;

...

// Organize the strings into a collection, say, an array 
// (Set, List etc. will do as well)
string[] lines = {
  "vJrwpWtwJgWrhcsFMMfFFhFp",
  "jqHRNqRjqzjGDLGLrsFMfFZSrLrFZsSL",
  "PmmdzqPrVvPwwTWBwg",
};

...

// Query the collection above with a help of Linq:
//   We turn each string into enumeration (IEnumerable<char>)
//   Aggregate all enumerations into one with a help of Intersect
//   Concat characters of the final enumeration to the string
string commonString = string.Concat(lines
  .Select(line => line.AsEnumerable()) // we deal with IEnumerable<char>, not string
  .Aggregate((s, a) => s.Intersect(a))
  .OrderBy(c => c) // In case you want common characters being ordered
);

if null can appear among the strings, change .Select(...) into

.Select(line => line?.AsEnumerable() ?? Array.Empty<char>())

Please, fiddle youself.

If you want just to intersect three strings you can do it as follow:

string first = "vJrwpWtwJgWrhcsFMMfFFhFp";
string second = "jqHRNqRjqzjGDLGLrsFMfFZSrLrFZsSL";
string third = "PmmdzqPrVvPwwTWBwg";

string commonString = string.Concat(first
  .Intersect(second)
  .Intersect(third));

CodePudding user response：

Intersect is transitive -- that means you can string them together in sequence.

var commonString = firstPartOfstring
                  .Intersect(secondPartOfString)
                  .Intersect(thirdPartOfString)
                  .Select(x => x).FirstOrDefault().ToString();

(nb - you can sequence them in any order - the other attribute of transitive)