Question

I am trying to create a program where two strings are entered. If they match it returns the number of positions where they contain the same length 2 substring.

for example:string_match(‘xxcaazz’, ‘xxbaaz’) → 3 “xx” “aa” “az”
My question is what metacharacters should i use to validate

here is what i have come up with

puts "enter word"
a = STDIN.gets
a.chomp!
puts"enter word"
b = STDIN.gets
b.chomp!
if a == /word/ or b == /word/ then 
  puts str.match(/{a} {b}/) + "equal"
end

Answer 1

UPDATED ANSWER:

( Still spiked, but better )

first_word = 'xxcaazz'.split('')
second_word ='xxbaaz'.split('')

first_word_length = first_word.length
second_word_length = second_word.length

if [first_word_length, second_word_length].min == first_word_length
  inner_word = second_word
  outter_word = first_word
else
  inner_word = first_word
  outter_word = second_word
end

outter_word_length = outter_word.length - 2

word_matches = 0

(0..outter_word_length).each do |character|
  if "#{outter_word[character]}#{outter_word[character + 1]}" == "#{inner_word[character]}#{inner_word[character + 1]}"
    puts "#{outter_word[character]}#{outter_word[character + 1]}"
    word_matches += 1
  end
end

puts "Found #{word_matches} matches"

ORIGINAL SPIKE:

This may get you off to a good start ( though it’s by no means bullet proof, just a quick spike ):

first_word = 'xxcaazz'.split('')
second_word ='xxbaaz'.split('')
first_word_length = first_word.length

(0..first_word_length).each do |character|
  if "#{second_word[character]}#{second_word[character + 1]}" == "#{first_word[character]}#{first_word[character + 1]}"
    puts "#{second_word[character]}#{second_word[character + 1]}"
  end
end