Question

Say I have an array of hash strings, e.g.

['a04a872ff4027233', '8cef496d2a92808c', etc.]

I would like an elegant way to determine what is the shortest uniform-length substring I can use to differentiate between the alternatives.

E.g. if the shortest length substring is 3, then the options could be abbreviated to [‘a04’, ‘8ce’, etc], and I could then just expand the abbreviation later.

I need a solution in Ruby.

Answer 1

(1...s.first.size).find {|i| !s.map {|j| j[0...i]}.uniq!}