finding common prefix of array of strings

Question

I have an array like this:

$sports = array(
\'Softball - Counties\',
\'Softball - Eastern\',
\'Softball - North Harbour\',
\'Softball - South\',
\'Softball -         


        

Answer 1

Short and sweet version, perhaps not the most efficient:

/// Return length of longest common prefix in an array of strings.
function _commonPrefix($array) {
    if(count($array) < 2) {
        if(count($array) == 0)
            return false; // empty array: undefined prefix
        else
            return strlen($array[0]); // 1 element: trivial case
    }
    $len = max(array_map('strlen',$array)); // initial upper limit: max length of all strings.
    $prevval = reset($array);
    while(($newval = next($array)) !== FALSE) {
        for($j = 0 ; $j < $len ; $j += 1)
            if($newval[$j] != $prevval[$j])
                $len = $j;
        $prevval = $newval;
    }
    return $len;
}

// TEST CASE:
$arr = array('/var/yam/yamyam/','/var/yam/bloorg','/var/yar/sdoo');
print_r($arr);
$plen = _commonprefix($arr);
$pstr = substr($arr[0],0,$plen);
echo "Res: $plen\n";
echo "==> ".$pstr."\n";
echo "dir: ".dirname($pstr.'aaaa')."\n";

Output of the test case:

Array
(
    [0] => /var/yam/yamyam/
    [1] => /var/yam/bloorg
    [2] => /var/yar/sdoo
)
Res: 7
==> /var/ya
dir: /var