Is there an exsting string comparison method that will return a value based on the first occurance of a non matching character between two strings?
i.e.
string A = "1234567890"
string B = "1234567880"
I would like to get a value back that would allow me to see that the first occurance of a matching break is A[8]
/// <summary>
/// Gets a first different char occurence index
/// </summary>
/// <param name="a">First string</param>
/// <param name="b">Second string</param>
/// <param name="handleLengthDifference">
/// If true will return index of first occurence even strings are of different length
/// and same-length parts are equals otherwise -1
/// </param>
/// <returns>
/// Returns first difference index or -1 if no difference is found
/// </returns>
public int GetFirstBreakIndex(string a, string b, bool handleLengthDifference)
{
int equalsReturnCode = -1;
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(a) || String.IsNullOrEmpty(b))
{
return handleLengthDifference ? 0 : equalsReturnCode;
}
string longest = b.Length > a.Length ? b : a;
string shorten = b.Length > a.Length ? a : b;
for (int i = 0; i < shorten.Length; i++)
{
if (shorten[i] != longest[i])
{
return i;
}
}
// Handles cases when length is different (a="1234", b="123")
// index=3 would be returned for this case
// If you do not need such behaviour - just remove this
if (handleLengthDifference && a.Length != b.Length)
{
return shorten.Length;
}
return equalsReturnCode;
}