Count of similar characters without repetition, in two strings - c

Question

I have written a C program to find out the number of similar characters between two strings. If a character is repeated again it shouldn't count it.
Like if you give an input of
everest
every
The output should be
3
Because the four letters "ever" are identical, but the repeated "e" does not increase the count.
For the input
apothecary
panther
the output should be 6, because of "apther", not counting the second "a".
My code seems like a bulk one for a short process. My code is
#include<stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main()
{
char firstString[100], secondString[100], similarChar[100], uniqueChar[100] = {0};
fgets(firstString, 100, stdin);
fgets(secondString, 100, stdin);
int firstStringLength = strlen(firstString) - 1, secondStringLength = strlen(secondString) - 1, counter, counter1, count = 0, uniqueElem, uniqueCtr = 0;
for(counter = 0; counter < firstStringLength; counter++) {
for(counter1 = 0; counter1 < secondStringLength; counter1++) {
if(firstString[counter] == secondString[counter1]){
similarChar[count] = firstString[counter];
count++;
break;
}
}
}
for(counter = 0; counter < strlen(similarChar); counter++) {
uniqueElem = 0;
for(counter1 = 0; counter1 < counter; counter1++) {
if(similarChar[counter] == uniqueChar[counter1]) {
uniqueElem++;
}
}
if(uniqueElem == 0) {
uniqueChar[uniqueCtr++] = similarChar[counter];
}
}
if(strlen(uniqueChar) > 1) {
printf("%d\n", strlen(uniqueChar));
printf("%s", uniqueChar);
} else {
printf("%d",0);
}
}
Can someone please provide me some suggestions or code for shortening this function?

Answer 1

You should have 2 Arrays to keep a count of the number of occurrences of each aplhabet.
int arrayCount1[26],arrayCount2[26];
Loop through strings and store the occurrences.
Now for counting the similar number of characters use:
for( int i = 0 ; i < 26 ; i++ ){
similarCharacters = similarCharacters + min( arrayCount1[26], arrayCount2[26] )
}

Answer 2

There is a simple way to go. Take an array and map the ascii code as an index to that array. Say int arr[256]={0};
Now whatever character you see in string-1 mark 1 for that. arr[string[i]]=1; Marking what characters appeared in the first string.
Now again when looping through the characters of string-2 increase the value of arr[string2[i]]++ only if arr[i] is 1. Now we are tallying that yes this characters appeared here also.
Now check how many positions of the array contains 2. That is the answer.
int arr[256]={0};
for(counter = 0; counter < firstStringLength; counter++)
arr[firstString[counter]]=1;
for(counter = 0; counter < secondStringLength; counter++)
if(arr[secondString[counter]]==1)
arr[secondString[counter]]++;
int ans = 0;
for(int i = 0; i < 256; i++)
ans += (arr[i]==2);

Answer 3

Here is a simplified approach to achieve your goal. You should create an array to hold the characters that has been seen for the first time.
Then, you'll have to make two loops. The first is unconditional, while the second is conditional; That condition is dependent on a variable that you have to create, which checks weather the end of one of the strings has been reached.
Ofcourse, the checking for the end of the other string should be within the first unconditional loop. You can make use of the strchr() function to count the common characters without repetition:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int foo(const char *s1, const char *s2);
int main(void)
{
printf("count: %d\n", foo("everest", "every"));
printf("count: %d\n", foo("apothecary", "panther"));
printf("count: %d\n", foo("abacus", "abracadabra"));
return 0;
}
int foo(const char *s1, const char *s2)
{
int condition = 0;
int count = 0;
size_t n = 0;
char buf[256] = { 0 };
// part 1
while (s2[n])
{
if (strchr(s1, s2[n]) && !strchr(buf, s2[n]))
{
buf[count++] = s2[n];
}
if (!s1[n]) {
condition = 1;
}
n++;
}
// part 2
if (!condition ) {
while (s1[n]) {
if (strchr(s2, s1[n]) && !strchr(buf, s1[n]))
{
buf[count++] = s1[n];
}
n++;
}
}
return count;
}
NOTE: You should check for buffer overflow, and you should use a dynamic approach to reallocate memory accordingly, but this is a demo.