Posted on Sep 4, 2021 • Edited on Sep 16, 2021

JS Coding Question #6: Is Anagram

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Interview Question #6:

Write a function that will check if two strings are anagram❓🤔

If you need practice, try to solve this on your own. I have included 2 potential solutions below.

Note: There are many other potential solutions to this problem.

Feel free to bookmark 🔖 even if you don't need this for now. You may need to refresh/review down the road when it is time for you to look for a new role.

Code if you want to play around with it: https://codepen.io/angelo_jin/pen/xxrVmdg

Solution #1: Array Sort

This solution will utilize a helper function to remove all unwanted punctuation and symbols, basically non-alphabetic characters. Then, will sort the string. Once both strings are sorted, compare if they are equal

function isAnagram(stringA, stringB) { const normalize = (str) => { return str .replace(/[^\w]/g, '') .toLowerCase() .split('') .sort() .join('') } return normalize(stringA) === normalize(stringB); }

Solution #2: Object/Hash Map

This solution is what I prefer although more steps are needed than the first solution.

Create a helper function to build a hash map for the string counting each and every characters. Once map is built, iterate and compare the count of first map against the second map.

function createCharMap (str) { const map = {} const normalizedString = str.replace(/[^\w]/g, '').toLowerCase() for (let char of normalizedString) { map[char] = map[char] + 1 || 1 } return map } function isAnagram(stringA, stringB) { const charMapA = createCharMap(stringA) const charMapB = createCharMap(stringB) if (Object.keys(charMapA).length !== Object.keys(charMapB).length) { return false } for (let char in charMapA) { if (charMapA[char] !== charMapB[char]) { return false } } return true }