Question

I am trying to learn Python. Consider this simple anagram checker in C:

bool are_anagrams(const char* str1, const char* str2)
{
  int str1_count[NUM_CHARS] = {0};
  int str2_count[NUM_CHARS] = {0};

  for(int i = 0; i < strlen(str1); i++)
  {
    str1_count[str1[i] - 'a']++;
  } 
  for(int i = 0; i < strlen(str2); i++)
  {
    str2_count[str2[i] - 'a']++;
  }

  for(int i = 0; i < NUM_CHARS; i++)
  {
    if(str1_count[i] != str2_count[i])
      { return false; }
  }

  return true;
}

Specifically, how is the line str1_count[str2[i] - 'a']++ done in Python?

Answer 1

Or even better,

def are_anagrams(s1, s2):
    return sorted(s1)==sorted(s2)

.

Edit: in response to @gnibbler:

Here’s a quick run-time comparison, where x axis gives string length; blue is your function, green is mine. Both look pretty linear to me.