Question

Is there an exsting string comparison method that will return a value based on the first occurance of a non matching character between two strings?

i.e.

string A = "1234567890"

string B = "1234567880"

I would like to get a value back that would allow me to see that the first occurance of a matching break is A[8]

Answer 1

/// <summary>
/// Gets a first different char occurence index
/// </summary>
/// <param name="a">First string</param>
/// <param name="b">Second string</param>
/// <param name="handleLengthDifference">
/// If true will return index of first occurence even strings are of different length
/// and same-length parts are equals otherwise -1
/// </param>
/// <returns>
/// Returns first difference index or -1 if no difference is found
/// </returns>
public int GetFirstBreakIndex(string a, string b, bool handleLengthDifference)
{
    int equalsReturnCode = -1;
    if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(a) || String.IsNullOrEmpty(b))
    {
        return handleLengthDifference ? 0 : equalsReturnCode;
    }

    string longest = b.Length > a.Length ? b : a;
    string shorten = b.Length > a.Length ? a : b;    
    for (int i = 0; i < shorten.Length; i++)
    {
        if (shorten[i] != longest[i])
        {
            return i;
        }
    }

    // Handles cases when length is different (a="1234", b="123")
    // index=3 would be returned for this case
    // If you do not need such behaviour - just remove this
    if (handleLengthDifference && a.Length != b.Length)
    {
        return shorten.Length;
    }

    return equalsReturnCode;
}