Find the Longest Common Prefix using Python

The challenge

Write a function to find the longest common prefix string amongst an array of strings. This string manipulation challenge requires careful handling of arrays, similar to getting the last element of a list in Python.

If there is no common prefix, return an empty string "". For more Python string challenges, you might also be interested in converting to PigLatin.

Example 1:

Example 2:

Note:

All given inputs are in lowercase letters a-z.

The solution in Python

def longestCommonPrefix(self, strs: List[str]) -> str:
    # the return string
    prefix = ''

    # break words into groups using `zip` and `*`
    # ["flower","flow","flight"] becomes:
    # (('f', 'f', 'f'), ('l', 'l', 'l'), ('o', 'o', 'i'), ('w', 'w', 'g'))
    for group in zip(*strs):
        # if the characters don't match, then break
        if not all(char==group[0] for char in group):
            break

        # otherwise, grow the prefix
        prefix += group[0]

    # return the prefix
    return prefix